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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26854750">A Test of Equanimity</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheFeyRa/pseuds/TheFeyRa'>TheFeyRa</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Death Note &amp; Related Fandoms, Death Note (Anime &amp; Manga)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Humor, Canon Commentary, Character Study, Could be read as mild Light Yagami bashing (at first. Give it time), Denial, Dubious Consent, During Canon, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, F/M, Friendship/Love, Fujoshi played for laughs, Gen, Harmless and Harmful Manipulation, Moral Ambiguity, Mostly OC-Centric, My First Fanfic, OC enters World, Older Woman/Younger Man, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Outwardly Impassive OC, Psychological, Redemption, Repression, Sexual Tension, Slow Burn, Stream of Consciousness, Supernatural Elements, Trust Issues, Unreliable Narrator, Weird Mix of Childishness and Maturity, mixed with fluff</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 17:08:38</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>35,808</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26854750</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheFeyRa/pseuds/TheFeyRa</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Summary: On a trip to Japan, a girl from our world ends up in the world of Death Note. Minding her own business, she nevertheless  finds herself in the wrong place and time. Both her and L could have done well enough without meeting the other, but perhaps this was what they needed. Eventual L x OC, more psychological than fluffy. Both have some issues to work through (but isn't that part of being human?).</p><p>This is an attempt at a practical, realistic OC from our world and evidence-based DN characterisation as much as is possible.</p><p>[OC meets L only in Chapter 4 and starts interacting with him for reals in Chapter 6.]</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Amane Misa/Yagami Light, L (Death Note) &amp; Original Character(s), L (Death Note) &amp; Original Female Character(s), L/Original Character, L/Original Female Character</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>73</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>85</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Lost</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Disclaimer: All fictional entities featured belong to Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata, the creators of Death Note; except Rae Wong and possibly a few extra characters I created for this fan fiction. Also, any resemblance to real-world persons or entities is entirely coincidental.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>AN: Hi all, I’m so glad you’re here! This is my first fanfiction – I always wanted to explore how L would be had he had more information in his investigations. I also wanted to explore how one of us would truly react had we actually entered the world of DN. I know many people see L as someone sweet, but honestly I think he has a dark side. I’ll try to discuss this more in chapters where L appears. There will be smut (it's almost a rite of passage for fanfic writers) but not for a while yet. It is OC-centric because part of L's charm is his inscrutability, and I wanted to retain that. If you're looking for a cool, feisty OC, you won't find it here. You know how there are some people who never seem to change expression even when the world is burning around them, probably because they're so much in their heads? I understand that type of OC could be boring but I wanted something different, so she's that type. Also, she's a closet dork. Enjoy!</p><p>NOTE: The first few chapters are dry. If you'd like to skip, I'll tell you now that L and Rae first meet in Chapter 4, and Rae only starts working for L in Chapter 6.</p>
<hr/><p>
  <strong> <span class="u">Chapter 1: Lost</span> </strong>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>December 5, 2003; 17 45</strong>
</p><p>An empty junkyard greeted Rae’s incredulous eyes as blind panic rose in her chest. Lugging a great weight on wheels behind her, she had followed the map sent by her Airbnb host from Narita airport, trying to ignore the chill wind blowing in her face from the cold Tokyo autumn. It had seemed strange that many of the landmarks mentioned in the directions were missing, but she had been too distracted by the weight of the winter things she had been wearing (she didn’t like the scarf strangling her neck, nor the heavy coat sitting atop her shoulders, nor the warm heeled boots which were killing her feet). She had been looking forward to a warm, clean apartment with complimentary wifi, where she would rest up before heading out, bright and early, to explore the sights and wonders of Japan.</p><p><em>Well, that’s shot to hell now, </em>she thought drolly. <em>Now what?</em> She checked her phone for the umpteenth time, hoping to finally receive a message from her curiously-unresponsive Airbnb host. <em>Perhaps it would be better to find shelter first and deal with this later? </em>Mentally searching for the name of the cheaper hotel she’d stayed at in a past trip to the country, she nodded decisively, and dragged herself back to the train station.</p><p>Sure, staying in a hotel would be more expensive, but she could always cut down on souvenirs.</p><p>“We interrupt your programming to bring you an important message from the ICPO --- This is being broadcast all over the world.”</p><p>Those familiar words cut through Rae’s train of rueful thought, like a butcher’s knife through a neck. <em>Um, what?</em> She’d come across those words before, but not in reality. She stood, frozen, in the middle of Shibuya crossing staring at the large broadcasting screen, where a smartly-dressed dark-haired man with a sharp gaze was speaking.</p><p>“My name is Lind L. Tailor, widely known as ‘L’.”</p><p>She chuckled, amused and heartened that such an old series was being filmed as Lind L. Tailor clutched his chest and keeled over, his forehead planted firmly on the table before him. She anticipated and watched as the real L challenged Kira, wondering if this was how they filmed the old version of the movie before. She didn’t recall much of the movie, but like a true fan, she appreciated the sight all the same. Looking around, she hoped to find out more about the upcoming movie from the people around her, but soon detected the palpable blanket of genuine fear and tension surrounding her. Unease stirred in her gut. She was alone for the first time in a foreign country in the midst of what seemed to be brewing unrest, and she had yet to secure accommodation. She wanted her mother.</p><p><em>Could it be-? </em>she thought, squashing the impulse to laugh hysterically. Trembling, she tried to spot filming cameras, to no avail. As all strength fled from her, it seemed as if she were inhabiting a stranger’s body, one that was numb and limp and feelingless. <em>This must be shock. I need to contact Mom to make sure. </em></p><p>She was going to have to find an alternative source of wifi. Rae forced herself to calm down. <em>I may be more sheltered than most people my age, but I always make it in the end. Think!</em></p><p><em>A manga-kissa!</em> She could go to a manga-kissa. They were cheap and they had 24-hour wifi or something. It could be some sort of Death Note promotional event that they did not publicise. She could contact her family over the wifi, and if she truly were in the Death Note world, she had enough Japanese yen on her, could speak some Japanese, and could live in the manga-kissa for now. She had her IDs, some travel toiletries and spare clothes. She would be fine. <em>Step by step, base by base! </em>She giggled inwardly, recalling a catchphrase from Ieyasu Tokugawa in the Samurai Warriors PS4 game she used to play.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>December 5, 2003; 20 03</strong>
</p><p>She gripped the edge of the table, trying not to panic. She’d tried to Facebook call her mother, but Facebook didn’t exist. Google existed, but could only be used to search for things. Skype was not around.</p><p>The manga-kissa she finally found had been a seedy place, kind of smelly and dim. But it was quiet, and provided showers and 24-hour facility use. She recalled how the people around her were using flip phones. She’d thought that was charming at first. But Death Note was set in the early 2000s, when all the technology she knew had not been invented yet. She could try buying a prepaid card to contact her family (if they existed in this world), but it was late and she was afraid. Crime was more rampant in this world than her own. <em>I have to hide this phone, turn it off and save battery.</em> Wait, if she needed to buy a prepaid card, would it be usable with her smartphone? Damn it!</p><p>Troubled by all these raging worries, she placed the chair she had been using against the door of the manga-kissa cubicle and slipped into a light, restless slumber on its cold, dirty floor.</p>
<hr/><p>*Manga-kissa: Short for manga-kissaten, or cafe, manga-kissa are establishments where users pay per hour for a cheap price to read all the manga they want. It's become a cheap form of accommodation for the homeless or for anyone wanting to save money. It's probably got fewer facilities in 2003, so no bed in this chapter, but there are showers in my story.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. A Game Plan</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Rae tries to find a way to survive in the DN world. She comes across Raye Penber in the train and leaves quickly, but is caught on CCTV.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>  AN: I do apologise if it’s too dry, but I had tons of fun imagining the actions of our OC in this hypothetical scenario.</p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <strong> <span class="u">  Chapter 2: A game plan</span> </strong>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>  December 6, 2003; 07 00</strong>
</p><p>  Munching on a konbini*-bought onigiri**, Rae decided on a game plan. She would assume, for now, that she had entered a completely different world, and that it was most likely that she had unknowingly done so through some kind of invisible portal. Then, it would make sense to retrace her route beginning from her touchdown at the airport. Try as she might, she could not recall whether those at the airport had been using flip phones. It would be just her luck if the dimension travel had happened en route to the country, but she tried not to think about that right now.</p><p>  <em>And what if I can’t find the portal? </em></p><p>  She’d spend a week doing the route-retracing, following the crude timeline she’d drawn before breakfast. If she could not find the portal, she’ll need to secure some form of employment, and then research dimension travel or something. She’ll save up, and then take a plane back to her home country in hopes of passing through the portal again.</p><p>  <em>But… wouldn’t there be other people in my position if that had happened? What if it actually isn’t a portal that brought me here?</em></p><p>  Well then, if there were other people in her position as well, she’d find them eventually. She could use her smart phone as proof. And she already said she’d research dimension travel. Surely dimensional anomalies would be rectified by the universe or something.</p><p>  Emboldened by her plan, she grinned.</p><p>
  <em>  Don’t I need to speak Japanese to find a job?</em>
</p><p>
  <em> Shut up, mind! We’ll get to it when we get to it! And just to answer your question, I’ll start learning Japanese every night, okay?! </em>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>  <strong>December 27, 2003; 15 00</strong></p><p>  Her spirits were, she had to admit, a little dampened. She’d retraced her route, going over every nook and cranny with a figurative fine-toothed comb, but her week-long search had yielded nothing. The money she brought with her to cover her 3-week long trip could last approximately 6 weeks, as she had spent it only on convenience store food and transport. Well, and on use of the manga-kissa. She had been wary of showering there on account of the possible existence of peeping toms (call her paranoid, but she knew how to protect herself) but had had no choice.</p><p>  She had not given up trying to find the portal (<em>if it exists-shut up!</em>) despite her self-stipulated deadline, but securing employment was more important for survival. Hours, days were spent combing through job ads, searching for ‘help wanted’ posters in front of shops. She had been lucky to happen upon a small, sleazy-looking bar in Shinjuku that catered mostly to foreigners. The owner had baulked a little at the fact that she did not have an employment pass, but had liked that she spoke English well and had a pleasant appearance. She was Chinese, but could also pass for Japanese if she didn’t speak, plus she could speak some basic Japanese and was learning. She’d become a better Japanese speaker in time and could also be paid less than her counterparts.</p><p>  Work started at 6pm, but she left her chosen place of residence earlier so that she could scour the train tunnels of Tokyo for the portal. <em>How does one get an employment pass in Japan again? </em>She wondered, lamenting the lack of Internet, her go-to for answers. Sighing, she continued walking through the train carriages.</p><p>  A huge, ugly black shape loomed before her and she slowed her steps, trying to process what it was. Monkey like, but giant, with a huge maw of shark-like teeth and bulging orange eyes. <em>Ryuk!</em> Before he could realise she saw him, she immediately looked into her bag and walked into the next carriage. <em>FuckthisshitI’mout. Light must be somewhere nearby.</em></p><p>Her hands trembled as she spied Raye Penber seated at one of the corner seats. <em>Fuckfuckfuck he’s gonna die I better not be anywhere near these people. I’m an innocent commuter~</em></p><p>At that moment, the doors to the next carriage opened, and without thinking she fled, not knowing that the CCTV would’ve caught a glimpse of her favorite red winter coat.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>*konbini: 24-hour convenience stores ubiquitous in urban parts of Japan.</p><p>**onigiri: Triangular rice balls with other flavoring ingredients like sour plum, salt etc.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. At Work</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Rae and Ryuzaki are at work. Ryuzaki reviews the CCTV footage and spots Rae. Electronic bugs and hidden cameras are installed in the police officers' households.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong> <span class="u">Chapter 3: At Work</span> </strong>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>December 28, 2003; 18 45</strong>
</p><p>Rae hummed nervously as she trailed Hanako, her mentor and new friend, watching intently as the latter cheerfully mixed up a High Ball. <em>I should’ve made the effort to drink more</em>, she sighed inwardly. She did not hate alcohol- okay, she did. It gave her a headache just a couple hours after drinking, and it was bitter and burned the throat. But that was besides the point. She smiled and greeted a new customer charmingly as he appeared in the doorway.</p><p>Rae’s face burned as she recalled how she had messed up a little the previous night, when she’d served sake in a regular glass, gotten confused at the customer’s requests for ‘small cup!’ and served it in a smaller glass. ‘You’re lucky you’re cute,’ her boss had said, after which he’d assigned Hanako to watch her carefully as she did her job. In her defense, she’d been shaken up by the FBI murders she’d almost encountered on the train.</p><p>Thankfully, she’d been alone at the station. She spent the better part of an hour staring blankly at the tracks, her knuckle coming up to rub at her forehead where a tension headache was blooming. Eventually, the station master had come up to her, chattering hesitantly but worriedly, and had brought her a cup of black coffee. He must’ve thought she was planning to throw herself on the tracks.</p><p>Fending him off with an abundance of ‘daijobu’s, she nevertheless bowed and thanked him profusely for the coffee before hurriedly leaving for the next train. It wouldn’t be good if people remembered her at all.</p><p>She startled as Hanako snapped her fingers in front of her eyes. “Gomenasai!” she exclaimed, mortified that she’d not been paying attention and knowing that she’d been lucky to get the job. ‘I’ll work harder, I mean, ganbarimasu?” She cringed at her abysmal Japanese. Was that the right response?</p><p>Hanako sighed and pointed at the tables. <em>I guess I’m relegated to cleaning duty for now?</em> She vowed that she would stay after her shift to study the drink recipes. The bar closed in the wee dawn, after all.</p><p><em>Naomi Misora should have heard about Penber’s death right about now, huh? </em>She did not know where the Task Force building was, nor which hotel L was staying in, but she wasn’t going anywhere near that.</p><p>Her mind wandered off to a more mundane but no less depressing topic. Her birthday was the next day, and she dearly missed her family. She had not taken many photos of herself or her family, and what she did have was on Facebook. Which was non-existent in this world. She missed her old life and her family, which was ironic considering she’d left for her trip to briefly take a break from her usual life.</p><p>She smiled at Hanako as she rested against the bar. Rae usually left immediately after work, which made it difficult to befriend her colleagues. In her old life, her colleagues had liked her well enough, but had found her difficult to get to know. In wanting to please everyone, she rarely gave too many strong opinions. Here, she didn’t know what to say, for fear of slipping up.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <strong>January 5, 2004; 08 00</strong>
</p><p>“These tapes are the recordings of every security camera relevant to the deaths of the FBI on December 27<sup>th</sup>,” Aizawa said nervously, glancing at the pale young man’s curiously expressionless face. L’s, or rather, Ryuzaki’s appearance had been a surprise to the Kira Investigation team. He’d greeted them in a monotone, lanky frame all hunched over, one foot scratching the other, and raven hair all in a mess. The world-famous detective proved to be observant and capable, gaining the respect of the members. But he was quiet and no one could tell what he was thinking.</p><p>“Show me all the footage of Raye Penber when he entered the gates up until his death,” stated Ryuzaki calmly, chewing at his thumb. He must’ve discovered something.</p><p>He sat up suddenly. “The envelope’s gone?!”</p><p>Reviewing the footage, they concluded that something must’ve happened on the train, and checked the security footage within the carriage Penber was in, as well as its adjacent carriages.</p><p>“There,” Ryuzaki frowned. A woman in a red winter coat had caught sight of something in the camera’s blind spot and tensed, then lowered her head and went into Penber’s carriage, where she got even more nervous. She seemed very aware of Penber, but alighted immediately.</p><p>“… pull up footage of the woman in red,” Ryuzaki requested, narrowing his eyes. They watched as she vacantly stared at the tracks, nursing a headache, before she was approached by the station master, given a cup of coffee and left.</p><p>“Is she…?” Chief Yagami questioned hesitantly. The woman looked far from a cold-blooded murderer.</p><p>The hush was broken by Watari’s cellphone ringing.</p><p>Line 5 turned out to be Matsuda’s cell, which Ryuzaki answered as Suzuki, information specialist of the kira division. Misora was missing.</p><p>“With his strange behavior in Yamanotesen, along with Naomi’s disappearance… Everyone, please investigate all the people Penber was following ever since Kira began his experiments on December 19<sup>th</sup>. The list should be small.”</p><p>L then dropped a bigger bombshell. “Please install hidden cameras and electronic bugs in all of their homes.”</p><p>“NO WAY! You can’t do that in Japan!” exclaimed Matsuda.</p><p>“No matter how powerful you are or what your background is, you can’t do that-“ Aizawa protested.</p><p>“Do you value your jobs over human lives?” Ryuzaki cut in coldly. And so, it was decided that cameras and electronic bugs would be installed in sub-chief Kitamura’s family, as well as Chief Yagami’s family.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Taken</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Ryuzaki acts on his suspicions towards Rae. He kidnaps, then interrogates her thrice.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>AN: By the way, Rae Wong is the anglicised version of the Chinese name Wang (family name) Rui (given name): <b>王</b> (Wah-ng) <b>瑞 (</b>Rue-ey). Wang is a very common Chinese surname, while her given name, Rui, means 'lucky/auspicious/suspicious' which kinda made me laugh because, what are the chances of a person actually slipping into a parallel dimension? Almost zero, lololol, but she somehow accomplished it because plot. The anglicised version of her name, 'Rae' means 'advisor/protector', which I thought was pretty apt.</p><p>I don't think L is out-and-out evil, but he's very guarded and I think he has very strong intuition. I'll leave it to you to decide whether intuition is the process of one's mind subconsciously piecing clues, or whether it's something more... supernatural. Rae isn't a good liar, so she's not even going to try.</p><p>You try being confined in 1 room with nothing to do for 2 months. You'd cry too.</p><hr/><p>
  <strong> <span class="u">Chapter 4: Taken</span> </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>???</strong>
</p><p>They had to have been lying in wait at her job. One moment her mind had been full of drink recipes, then in a flash she’d been gagged, blindfolded and her arms restrained behind her back. She couldn’t recall any more.</p><p>When Rae came to, she found herself sitting in an uncomfortable chair in a small, cold room with a single bulb overhead, facing a blank screen. “Where… where am I?” she asked aloud. If L had been the one behind her kidnapping, there were probably electronic bugs and cameras somewhere.</p><p>A crackling sound emitted from the screen in front of her, before it is joined by a voice that had been electronically disguised. “Rae Wong. Race: Chinese. Age: Twenty-six. Lack of proficiency in Japanese, demonstrates proficiency in English. Current occupation: trainee bartender. You, however, appear to have no records that prove your existence.”</p><p> “Mr. Investigator, you have my full cooperation. Please ask what you may.”</p><p>“On December 27, you were caught on CCTV behaving oddly in front of one we were investigating. He was later found dead at 4.42pm, face down on the train platform. Would you please describe what you were doing?”</p><p>“I was avoiding him, Ryuzaki,” she said, deliberately alerting him to her knowledge of the ongoing Kira investigation. She had decided that she would be completely open to him. He was already wont to suspect everyone and everything by nature, and any dishonesty he sensed, harmless or not, would not endear her to him. He tensed. “You’re probably wondering why and how much I know, and I fully intend to tell you. That is, if you can suspend belief and not, you know, torture me for speaking my truth.”</p><p>She decided being candid, diplomatic and respectful was the way to go. She recounted how she had been searching for the tourist apartment she had booked online but found only an empty junkyard. She had decided to go to a hotel for the night and was at Shibuya crossing where she watched as he challenged Kira.</p><p>“How did you know my true alias?” he cut in coolly. He was on guard now.</p><p>“I know more than your alias. I also know your true name. I know how you look like. I know that you are a very lanky and pale young man with dark rings under your thousand-yard stare. And yet, I haven’t tried to kill you. I’m not Kira.” He was on full guard now. He had anticipated her being Kira’s pawn and had not held up too much hope. But she was dangerous. How would he deal with her?</p><p>“I’m not dangerous. I could, in fact, be somewhat of an asset in your fight against Kira, if you’ll let me. Like I said, I have every intention of giving you my full cooperation. I tried to avoid Raye Penber precisely because I didn’t want to be involved with Kira. In fact, I didn’t want to be involved in this as well. Power, ego, law – I have no interest in any of those lofty concepts. I simply wished to make my way in this world.”</p><p>He narrowed his eyes. She sure spoke a lot. No one could be that transparent. For now, he’d watch and wait.</p><p>“Explain.”</p><p>“In my world, Kira does not exist. Neither do you, L. Or at least, not in reality.”</p><p>“What is my name?”</p><p>“L Law-“</p><p>He cut her off. “You say many incredible things,” he mused. This was not something he could afford to take lightly. What she said was so easy to dismiss, and yet her words rang unmistakably with truth, resounding in his gut. Background checks had yielded nothing on her, and he frowned, hating to be at a disadvantage. </p><p>“I look forward to meeting with you again.”</p><hr/><p>
  <strong>???</strong>
</p><p>She was blindfolded and injected with something. She registered the painful prick of a needle before everything faded to black. <em>Is that needle sterile</em>, she thought, dimly.</p><p>She found herself sitting in a plush armchair in an opulent setting. One of her wrists were handcuffed to a huge dining table with a large glittering chandelier overhead. What was this, Buckingham Palace? She snorted derisively to herself. The décor was nice, but not to her taste. <em>I wonder if chandeliers could be repurposed as crowns for common folk – wait! That’s not the important thing here</em>. Where was she? Shuffling footsteps drew her flagging attention. <em>It must be the drugs. I can’t concentrate. Mm, drugs. I wonder how they extract opium from poppies. No wait, that’s not important. Did they sterilize the needle?</em></p><p>“We give our suspects the royal treatment,” said a deep, monotone voice dryly. …<em>So, did he sterilize the needle or not?</em></p><p>“I’m sorry, I feel a little… ungrounded. I… can’t quite focus,” she apologized. Huh, was that her voice? She did not mumble. “L,” she tried to greet him with a nod, but triggered another dizzy spell. It was unpleasant.</p><p>“You’ve said many fantastical things to me. You even pronounce my last name correctly,” he began, almost conversationally.</p><p>“You’re my favorite,” she grinned. Of course I try to know more about you. Wait, was that the proper tense? I tried? I’d try? She was tired. Why was she so tired?</p><p>“You claim to be from a different world where I, nor Kira, existed. That seems to contradict the fact that you know this much about me.”</p><p>“You exist in young adult fiction,” she mumbled. “Though Kira was the proga… proto- pro-“</p><p>“Protagonist?” he injected, dryly.</p><p>“Yes, that!” she exclaimed, more excited than she had any cause to be. “What’s wrong with me? It’s getting’ harrer to pro..pro… say worsss…”</p><p>“Drug effects,” he stated shortly, not wanting the interrogation to be derailed. The effects of the drug were useful for extracting the truth from interrogation candidates as they were rendered virtually incapable of making up lies. She had to be telling the truth. But now, he needed her lucid.</p><p>“I can.. info.. useful,” she was visibly struggling against its effects. “Shi-shinigami…”</p><p>She was telling the truth, but it appeared that the drug had lost its usefulness. He had her confined in the room next to his, intending to revisit her later. Light Yagami, he knew, was the one who needed to be watched.</p><hr/><p>
  <strong>???</strong>
</p><p>The next meeting with L only happened at least a couple months later. In the meantime, she had been locked in what appeared to be a hotel room. Meals were delivered regularly thrice a day, but there was nothing to do. She communicated with Watari through a walkie talkie, which briefly amused her for its secret-agent-like connotations, until she got bored of it. That confinement period almost drove her insane, and she spent most of the time doing crunches, jumping jacks and sit-ups. Thankfully there was an adjoining shower room, so she was able to keep clean. She wondered what her colleagues thought about her absence. Did they think she’d cut and run? Where were the rest of her belongings? She at least had her clothes and toiletries back, but she was missing her passport, wallet, smartphone and ipad. She wondered how they had retrieved her things. Did they walk right into the manga-kissa or did they break in? In any case, she would not put it past Ryuzaki to have cameras and bugs everywhere in the room she was currently in, so she showered in the dark. Sometimes, she wondered if she was really in a mental hospital, and that she had hallucinated being in the world of Death Note, but then she'd slap herself silly (sometimes literally). She had to believe in herself. <em>Be strong,</em> her mother had always told her.</p><p>She was keeping herself busy counting the number of tiles in the bathroom when Watari finally came in to blindfold and retrieve her. Blindfolded, she was guided to a suite of rooms, where she was allowed to see again. He left her alone after telling her that Ryuzaki wanted to address her personally and could be found in one of the rooms.</p><p>Padding through the plushily-carpeted rooms, she finally found him in an armchair, slowing her footsteps as he appeared to stifle a groan, immediately following that with a creepy, deranged grin over his shoulder at her. As she made her way to his armchair, he stood up, still hunched, and offered his left hand to her to shake. “I fear we got off on the wrong foot, Ms. Wong. Pleased to make your acquaintance,” he said, in a manner that could be described as… greasy, his thousand-yard stare boring into hers.</p><p>“Likewise,” she said politely, obligingly shaking his proffered left hand. He grinned creepily again and then wiped his right hand, almost chuckling awkwardly.</p><p>She blinked at him quizzically until she placed the scene – it resembled one of the Rewrite anime movies where he meets Light in a movie theatre. Madhouse seemed to have been giving the impression that he was, um, busy with himself, and some netizens theorized that he had been pretending in order to sell the ‘social deviant’ image. It was said that he tried too hard to make it obvious, and she had to agree. L would not have put himself in such a vulnerable position with a stranger, even if he had the clear physical advantage.</p><p>He must’ve caught the relieved shift in her gaze, for his own narrowed for a split second before he grinned again and continued, “I believe we had a rather amusing discussion last time, though your coherency left much to be desired.” His first strategy to creep her out had failed, so he’d switched tack. That knowledge did not make it any easier on her nerves, for now his hackles were up. The madlad sure loved his psychological games.</p><p>“You know, you make goosepimples rise on the back of my neck,” she laughs, a little shakily. “In any case, I believe I apologized for my lapse back then. As the world’s top detective, and I’m sure you have more important things to accomplish with your time. With all due respect, I am willing to tell you whatever you wish to know.” Did she lay it on too thick? Making him mad was something to be avoided at all costs.</p><p>“You mentioned Shinigami,” L stated, getting right to it.</p><p>Obligingly, she told him what she knew about Shinigami in the DN universe – how they seemed to have some sort of hierarchy but that it didn’t seem to have much significance to some Shinigami; that most were selfish and spent the time gambling and idling until they needed to use the remaining lifespan of humans to extend their own through the use of a notebook of death, but that she knew of three exceptions, two of whom had the desire to protect and self-sacrifice for one specific individual, and one who was an amoral troublemaker and had started the entire Kira fiasco in the first place, seeking entertainment from the human world. His expression was bland and vacant, but she was sure he had committed every word to memory. His eyes sharpened upon hearing about the Death Notes and she explained that to him, too, though she admitted she didn’t remember all of the rules.</p><p>“In any case,” she hastened to add, “that troublemaking shinigami wrote the rules he knew behind the cover of the book that Kira owns. I’m not even sure that they were exhaustive. You already know that a name and face are needed to kill. But destroying the Note comes with no consequence, and there is no rule that specifies the need to keep killing. Users write names in the book at their own discretion.”</p><p>He did not reply, letting the silence stretch between them. Perhaps it was supposed to be an intimidation tactic, or maybe he was taking the time to assimilate this new information into his worldview. Whatever the case, she took the opportunity to observe her favorite character. His raven hair reminded her of a hedgehog's back. He was even more slender than he'd appeared in fiction, his features sharper and a study in contrast, but the overall effect was somehow pleasing. He didn't have a bad-looking silhouette at all, and though worn-looking, his clothes were definitely clean. His dark eye circles were really fascinating, though. In fiction they looked kind of like thick eyeliner, but seeing him as he was now in the flesh, they stood out against his almost paper-white skin and made his eyes appear to take up half his face. </p><p>Death Note boasted an intricate, multilayered plotline, which spawned countless fan theories and interpretations of L’s methods and motivations, among other elements of the story, but one thing was certain: L was not someone to be taken at face value despite how cute he appeared in the anime. That reminded her, which plotline were they following here? The manga, anime, or movies? The scene where he greeted her came from one of the alternate canon movies, so what if reality was actually a mix of all-</p><p>“Would you tell me more about yourself?” L asked rather civilly, turning over her smartphone. It was out of battery. He gazed at its black, reflective screen. He would try for neutral civility with her.</p><p>“I told you,” she mumbled. “I don’t know how I got here but this isn’t my world. My world is very like this world, but we don’t have mysterious star detectives like yourself, nor such rampant crime rates. And I was from the year 2020, where technology has significantly advanced.” Mournfully, she gazed at her smartphone, one of her only links to her world. “My smartphone is out of battery.”</p><p>“Yes, I thought you might say that,” he murmured, though she wasn’t sure what he was agreeing with. “Perhaps you could tell me what you have done since your… arrival here, as you claim.”</p><p>She started to explain, but reliving the stress and loneliness and desperation of her experiences made her start sniffling. Before long her sniffles graduated to loud, uncontrollable sobs and she covered her eyes with the palms of her hands, mortified that she had lost her composure. Did she mention she was stressed?</p><p>“I-“ *hic* “I d-do… ap-ap *sniff* apolo- *sniff* gise,” she muttered, in between jags of crying. Taking deep breaths, she focused on regaining her calm bearing. She had no idea what kind of reaction Ryuzaki had. Neither was she concerned. “I do apologise. I have been under immense pressure and stress ever since I arrived.”</p><p>He hummed, changing the subject. “Watari will show you to your room.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Proposal</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Transition chapter before Rae is allowed to flounce around freely. Rae freely offers whatever patchy knowledge on DN she has, expecting to be released, but Ryuzaki instead asks her to work for him and provides her ID and other papers.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong> <span class="u">Chapter 5: Names</span> </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>April 6, 2004; 18 00</strong>
</p><p>Rae had been embarrassed at her crying outburst, but she’d quickly pulled herself together and requested writing implements from Watari through her walkie-talkie, along with a large teddy bear (unrelated to her endeavours, but she was used to cuddling a large stuffed toy while she slept). He’d delivered a laptop from Ryuzaki for her use, though its functions were, of course, restricted.</p><p>She’d spent almost all her free time drafting a rough timeline of Death Note events she could remember, from all Death Note releases, including what she’d heard about the light novels. She was, at this point, rather certain that this world would have to follow the manga’s sequence of events as the anime (or at least, what she remembered of it) mostly followed the same plotline, with minor scenes added or cut. Unfortunately, she’d been less interested in the plot after L died, so that bit was hazier. It wasn’t much, since she’d been a teenager when she’d last read the series, but she thought there might be enough for L to have a grasp of all the ‘rules’ of the cat-and-mouse game.</p><p>She wasn’t sure whether Watari had passed her work on to L or not, for he had not contacted her in two months. In the meantime, she’d insisted that Watari bring her study materials to brush up on her Japanese. Hey, she’d done the best she could by them both, hadn’t she? It was time to look out for herself, and she hated wasting time. She’d already lost 2-3 months of her life doing nothing but counting tiles and bodyweight exercises.</p><p>She’d already showered and changed into pajamas in preparation for dinner when Watari unceremoniously informed her that she’d be dining with L instead. She debated whether to put on concealer under her prominent dark circles (that were now darker from stress and from the months of not sleeping with a stuffed toy to cuddle), but figured she probably didn’t need to impress him. It wasn’t like he could talk; the man’s coon eyes were the worst in the two worlds she’s been in.</p><p>Watari brought in a full tray of tea things, along with a covered dish – her dinner, it turned out to be. She watched warily as the detective himself shuffled in, hands in his pockets. She would have preferred they had dinner outside, for it now felt as though her personal space was being encroached upon. L didn’t say anything; merely perched on the other side of the bed in his characteristic owl-like pose, fixing himself a cup of overly sugared tea. She was conscious of the fact that she’d forgone a bra, and clutched her bear to her chest to try and hide it. Did she speak first, or should she wait? Perhaps she’d eat dinner.</p><p>“Rae Wong,” L suddenly spoke. “Your notes, while incredible, demonstrate remarkable accuracy with regard to the events that have transpired thus far. If you are willing, I would like you to work on the Kira case with me.” Yep, that was L: goal-oriented, clear… and most probably lying.</p><p>“How much doubt do you have towards me, Ryuzaki?” she could not help asking, though he noticed she’d gripped her teddy bear rather tightly. “I mean, I’m sure my circumstances are very unbelievable.” She'd expected him to test out some of the claims she'd made in her notes, and perhaps to let her go. After all, she wasn't detective-police material.</p><p>“Just 3%,” Ryuzaki says. “I am willing to slowly let go of these doubts as we proceed with the investigation.”</p><p>Well, his 3% = 90+ % or something, right? At least, that’s what the DN creators had said in an interview. He probably wanted to watch her or something, though she wasn’t sure what value she’d bring in the investigation. Still, if it meant she’d be let out of this room… but she’d probably end up meeting Light and Misa… but if she could negotiate with him, perhaps… but she could die…</p><p>“Perhaps we could be of mutual benefit to each other,” Ryuzaki ventured, noting her conflicted expression. He motioned Watari forward, and he opened the case he was carrying. “Amano Rui, twenty-one years old. Lived abroad for seventeen years, but you came back to Japan following the death of your parents. Seeking employment opportunities.” The case contained a Japanese passport, birth certificate, and educational details. “You’ll be allowed to attend university when you’ve mastered Japanese.” <em>Twenty-one? Damn, he sure knew how to flatter a lady </em>, she thought vaguely, and almost giggled, but stopped herself as he continued speaking.</p><p> “Every measure necessary will be taken to ensure your safety. As far as the task force are concerned, you will be, simply, Rui.”</p><p>But what did he deem necessary? How could he expect her to make such an important decision on the spot? “Could I be given more time to make my choice?” she tried.</p><p>“The Kira case is very crucial. As we speak, countless others continue to perish of heart attacks. Your cooperation is very much important and desired,” he replied. Huh, Yagami Senior was right. Ryuzaki never says things directly. It was weird though, since she was, by all accounts, a civilian, and he already knew all she had that was useful to the case. Plus, it had to be expensive to keep someone in custody for this long. Wouldn't the logical thing be to let her go? Oh, DUH. He'd probably been lucky to have spotted her, and he could not let her fall into Kira's hands, especially since Kira could control the actions of his victims. Paying her off wouldn't do anything. Well, she wasn't about to overlook a gift horse in the mouth. Free meals, free board? Sign her up!</p><p>“Thanks, Ryuzaki,” she replied. “I would be happy to join you! When is my involvement required?"</p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>AN: Rae’s Japanese name, Amano Rui, is written as 天野 るい. It's as common and unremarkable as I can make it.</p><p>I've been wondering: since Rae's got both an English and Chinese version of her name, which version would be necessary for the Death Note to kill her? Would both have to be written down, or just any one of them? I haven't decided.</p>
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<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Eavesdropping</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Rae, or Rui, now works for Ryuzaki and has a ton of giggles in the process. She spies on Ryuk and Yagami Senior gets a heart attack.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong><span class="u">Chapter 6: Eavesdropping</span> </strong>
</p><p>Note: Most of the description on L’s daily routine is taken from L: One Day, a manga chapter found inside L FILE No. 15, though I took some liberties with it to make it more plausible. I didn’t just pull it out my a** or something.</p><p>EDIT: Changed the dates from 2020 to 2004, as they should be.</p>
<hr/><p>
  <strong>April 7, 2004; 06 00</strong>
</p><p><em>I should’ve known</em>, she grumbled inwardly, as she gently brought the small electric shaver to the stubble along L’s eyebrows. <em>There was no way I could’ve been involved in the task force the way I expected to be.</em></p><p>There was no discernable reason that she would be allowed onto the force as a civilian, so she was now working as L’s personal assistant, supporting Watari in more menial tasks (such as L’s upkeep) so that he could go and do things like order weapons and oversee headquarters construction, or at least that’s what she guessed to be the case. They were to take shifts in caring for L, especially since L was the only one who would spend 100s of hours awake and everyone else, Watari included, needed sleep.</p><p>In a position akin to Watari, she would then be allowed to come and go as she pleased while the task force members did their work, having been sworn to secrecy. She’d probably have to bring them coffee. Which reminded her, she’d better start practicing.</p><p>L’s daily ablutions were a real eye-opener. He liked to be clean but found cleaning himself a real chore. Consequently, Watari invented a human washing machine for him, complete with dryer functions. In Rae’s world, human washing machines existed, but they were highly expensive and left the head exposed*. This washing machine, however, resembled any normal front-load clothes washing machine, except for its loading capacity. When asked how he was able to use the machine without having to breathe, Rae learnt that L could hold his breath for twenty minutes, though he usually only did it for ten. He also elected to shave his eyebrows, which both added to the social weirdo image he wanted to maintain as well as made him more expressionless.</p><p><em>Huh</em>. The man in question was fixedly staring at the screen in front of him, his brilliant mind no doubt working overtime to plot and rehearse all possibilities to do with engaging Light Yagami later.</p><p>“Now it’s ‘banzai’,” she said, indicating for him to raise his hands so that she could slip the characteristic white shirt over his torso. L had about twenty to thirty pieces of the same outfit, which he changed into twice a day with Watari’s help. According to Watari, he was fully capable of doing so, he just lacked the interest. He would wear trousers, but probably just walk around shirtless if he were left to his own devices. She wondered how L’s teeth maintained its cleanliness, but Watari had told her that task was best left to him.</p><p>“Watari will be seeing to your new wardrobe,” L suddenly stated. “You’ll be picking it out, of course. Expense is no object, but please adhere to a more formal style for believability.”</p><p>She laughed. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but everyone around you dresses formally but you. That just reminds me of Bollywood line-ups where the lead female and male dress differently from the dancers in the background. Except, you know, you do the opposite.” He merely gave her a flat stare. Imagining L in that kind of scene, along with that flat stare, just made her laugh harder.</p><p>Watari suddenly came forward, chuckling. He was one hell of a butler – appearing in the most unexpected of places at the most unexpected of times, or perhaps he had the gift of making himself unnoticeable until needed. He passed her a boar bristle brush, which she proceeded to use on Ryuzaki’s raven mane, to the detective’s visible consternation. He probably still didn’t trust her, which begged the question of whose decision it had been to employ her as his assistant.</p><p>To her surprise, his hair, though untamed from the machine’s drying function, was soft and tangle-free. Some people were blessed with all the genes, she marveled. Or perhaps it was the conditioner Watari invented.</p>
<hr/><p>
  <strong>April 7, 2004; 13 03</strong>
</p><p>In an auburn wig, dressed in Mori girl fashion**, Rui casually entered the small, cosy coffeehouse and took a seat as per Watari’s instructions. He ordered her a milk tea and then left her to her own devices.</p><p>Ryuk was so huge that she didn’t need to be that close in order to watch him. Observing him from the corner of her eye, Rui pretended to be engrossed in a fashion magazine as she listened intently through the transmission earpiece Ryuzaki had on his person. Thus far, the Shinigami had done nothing except float at Light’s shoulder like a particularly evil balloon.</p><p>Her ears picked up a rustling sound as L took some pieces of paper out of his back pocket. “Here is the order that the twelve FBI agents died and the order in which they received a certain file,” L said. “Secondly, these three are the letters that some victims wrote on the prison walls before they died.”</p><p>This must be the point where L hid a trap within two traps for Kira – where Light fixated on the fact that deflecting suspicion required him to ask Ryuzaki for more information before conceivably being able to comment on the documents, but then forgot to account for the fact that someone of his intelligence who was not Kira would likely not have made the assumption that there were only three pictures that formed the message. And then the real trap – him being able to come up with the best course of action to find out if a suspect were Kira.</p><p>She’d forgotten much of the nuances of the scene, and was greatly amused at the way Ryuzaki then began to gaslight the hell out of Light with his hints that he might not be L after all.</p><p>Evidently, she was not the only one. She listened intently as a deep growly voice said, “Hohoho, Raito is completely pinned down.” She was mildly impressed at how Light went on with nary a flinch nor pause despite the interruption, and found herself wanting to laugh again as he claimed that Ryuzaki looked more like Kira than himself.</p><p>Light sure talked a lot, but Ryuzaki gave as good as he got, throwing him verbal curveballs here and there. She could see why Ryuk was so attached to Light; him and Ryuzaki sure put on a good show. Unfortunately, it was interrupted by phone calls for both of them.</p><p>Rui got her answer as L informed Light about his father. <em>Ah, the stress-induced heart attack</em>, she thought. L was carrying a long-distance transmitter, so she was able to continue listening in, even as Watari picked her up and drove around the hospital, waiting for Ryuzaki to be done. Perhaps she was lucky to be able to work for L after all, if she got to bear witness to these cat-and-mouse mind games. They were so much better when viewed in reality. Also, he’d made it possible for her to work in Japan. The creators of DN were Japanese, and it stood to reason that DN’s Japan would resemble its Rui-world counterpart the closest than any other country would. Who knew what differences there were between say, DN’s Britain and Rui-world Britain, coloured and shaped by the perceptions of DN’s creators. It was only natural that she’d want to work in the place she currently had the most accurate knowledge of.</p><p>Honestly, Ryuk didn’t say anything useful – he mostly snickered and made snide comments at Light. And of course, Ryuzaki himself was a real riot. Upon Light’s request to lock him up in a place with no media access to prove his innocence, Ryuzaki said, “No, we can’t do something so immoral.. And arresting someone who is a mere suspect is ridiculous.”</p><p><em>Is anyone else getting a load of this?</em> Rui snickered to herself, noting again that this was the same guy who later arrested Misa-Misa and put her blindfolded and gagged, in confinement where he repeatedly tried to coerce a confession out of her. And then he turned his words around again and told Light that his conversation with Yagami Soichiro was beginning to make him think that Light was not Kira.</p><p>Ryuzaki keeps waffling between different conclusions, doesn’t he?</p><p>*Human washing machine: <a href="https://www.trendhunter.com/trends/human-washing-machine-avant-santelubain-999-applies-seaweed-packs-too#:~:text=The%20automatic%20washing%20device%20is,Seaweed%20Pack%2C%20and%20Body%20Lotion">https://www.trendhunter.com/trends/human-washing-machine-avant-santelubain-999-applies-seaweed-packs-too#:~:text=The%20automatic%20washing%20device%20is,Seaweed%20Pack%2C%20and%20Body%20Lotion</a>.</p><p>**Mori girl fashion: https://taiken.co/single/wearing-the-forest-facts-about-mori-girl-fashion/</p>
<hr/><p><span class="u">AN (just some thoughts):</span> Why did I create Rae to be the way she is? I wanted someone who would stand on equal terms with L in terms of emotional maturity, but who also knew when to roll with the punches, as she does. She has to be the one to understand him first, obviously, so I think a slightly older, more worldly woman would be better. At the same time, she needs to have a childlike side to be able to connect with L. I think people like her don’t tend to connect well with others irl, so she has learnt to mask the more spontaneous sides of herself with politeness, just as L himself does at times. And of course, to survive in the Death Note world, you kind of need to have a sense of humor.</p><p>What L wants, L gets, as he has consistently demonstrated in canon. Thus, I personally don’t think someone who is as stubborn as him could get along with him. At the same time, because she’s a female, or perhaps because of her no-nonsense, practical attitude, he does vaguely feel the need to be more independent in order to be less self-conscious, though he himself doesn’t realise it. L is a textbook INTP (Myers-Briggs test), so I think Rae would have to be an NT type as well. He isn’t that unreasonable, but if you’re disagreeing with his suggested course of action you better have a logical explanation and alternate course of action to suggest, or he has no time for you. L is that kind of person. L is also more open-minded than most, even though he doesn’t like being questioned, as the task members keep doing.</p><p><span class="u">Reference:</span> https://practicaltyping.com/2019/11/18/death-note-l-lawliet-intp/</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Repression</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>We are entering the Sakura TV arc. This chapter follows canon pretty closely.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>AN: Edited 2020 to 2004, as they should be.</p><p>Note: if Rui speaks, if Watari or L speaks to her, it's in English. If the task force members speak, or if Watari or L speak to the task force members, it's in Japanese.</p><p>If Rui speaks Japanese, I'll indicate it with an asterisk and footnote.</p><hr/><p><strong><span class="u">Chapter 7: Repression</span> </strong> <span class="u"></span></p><p>
  <em>“Yumyumyum~ Definitely, home-cooked food is the best!” Mother exclaimed, larger than life as always. “Don’t you think so?” she asked, turning to Rae with an almost childish delight.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Right, right?! Thanks, Roman!” Rae mirrored her mother’s enthusiasm, clapping her hands against her mother’s open palms enthusiatically. The cook in person beamed smugly at his self-proclaimed (but completely deserved) ‘mad masterchef skillz’. The year 2020 had started out fine, but then COVID-19 happened, and they were forced to quarantine themselves at home. That was the first time in a long while that Rae, her mother, and her brother had interacted in such close quarters, and it had brought them closer together.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Division of labor was key: Mother and Roman took turns on grocery runs and on cooking meals, while Rae was in charge of housework. She could cook, but her food was the least tasty of the three and so they unanimously voted her out of the kitchen, to her unholy glee (she hated cooking).</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Better wear a mask when you go out later, okay boyboy?” Rae teased her brother, pinching his nose as he whined. The pandemic struck fear all around the world, of course, but among the three of them, a sense of peace and wellbeing suffused the once-vacant house.</em>
</p><p>Rui jolted awake, tears running down her cheeks. Huh. She pushed down the perpetual ache in her chest that sometimes made itself known at the randomest of times. Perhaps she had dreamt about her family again, but the dream sequence flitted elusively at the edges of her memory no matter how much she tried to pull it into her conscious thought processes.</p><hr/><p>
  <strong>April 18, 2004; 16 54</strong>
</p><p>It had been a long day, made even more tiring from lack of sleep. Her head had swum with images of structured jackets, chiffon and silk blouses, cotton collared shirts, twill and wool dress pants and fitted jeans in such colours as black, white, navy and pinstripe, to be paired with loafers and oxford shoes. After that three-hour-long clothes selection process for her work wardrobe, she had waited on the task force members for a bit, brewing copious amounts of coffee. Watari had then sent her out on a giant cake run for L's dinner afterwards, both to the hotel's patisserie downstairs, as well as to the nearest premium bakery.</p><p>She got back in time to note that L's discussion with the task force ended up going much the same way it did in canon, except that he didn't insist on looking for Misora Naomi after Matsuda's suggestion to give up on her search.</p><p>At that moment, Watari entered the room, looking uncharacteristically agitated. “Ryuzaki.”</p><p>“What is it?”</p><p>“Sakura TV… Something big happened,” he replied gravely, turning the television on.</p><p>Sakura TV announced, with great fanfare, that they were being taken hostage by Kira. “It is now 5:59. The broadcast will now begin.”</p><p>All watched, agog, as a clearly amateur-made video with ‘KIRA’ spelt out in gothic letters, was aired, and viewers were told to change the channel to Taiyou TV. Ryuzaki demanded tersely for this to be done, just in time for everyone to see the news anchor collapse where he sat between two other hosts.</p><p>“Please move one… no, two more televisions to this room,” Ryuzaki requested of Watari. That was Rui’s cue. Watari called up the hotel’s reception while Rui raced down to the hotel lobby to supervise the movement of the TVs.</p><p>“Channel 24,” Ryuzaki requested firmly, as soon as the TVs were installed, only to see the collapse of another TV anchor. “Kira is directly manipulating the mind of the public,” he observed. “It may be troublesome if we don’t stop the broadcast soon.”</p><p>Ukita, true to form, stepped up as all tried, in vain, to contact Sakura TV. “Da… Damn it! I’ll go stop them myself!” he snarled, running out despite the others calling him back.</p><p>At least two different broadcasts were playing simultaneously: Kira’s megalomaniacal message to the public, and a live broadcast on in front of Sakura TV. “This is a live feed from the front of SakuraTV station! We do not have a correspondent at the site but what you are seeing is a live feed from the front of Sakura tv! This just in, there is someone lying in front of Sakura TV station’s door!”</p><p>Rui had expected this, but it did not lessen her shock and dismay at witnessing the death of someone she knew, even if in passing. Ukita had been abrupt in manner but she could tell he had been one of the most duty-bound members in the task force. People like him were few and far between in the worlds she had been in.</p><p>“UKITA!!!” Aizawa roared, in grief and rage. “DAMN YOU KIRA!” He impulsively got up and started heading for the door, much like Ukita had done.</p><p>“Aizawa-san, stop. Where are you going?” Ryuzaki called out.</p><p>“To where Ukita is! I’ll retrieve those tapes myself,” Aizawa snarled, gritting his teeth at the thought of his dead friend, lying there so ingloriously.</p><p>“If you go now, you’ll die too,” Ryuzaki replied calmly.</p><p>“Ryuzaki… Are you telling me to sit and stare at the TV doing nothing?” Aizawa asked, his voice cracking in desperation.</p><p>“I’m telling you to calm down. I, too, want to stop the broadcast right now. We may find crucial clues if we can get our hands on the original video cassettes that Kira mailed in. However, if Ukita-san was killed by Kira, then anyone else who goes there now will suffer the same fate,” Ryuzaki explained calmly.</p><p><em>Oh, Ryuzaki</em>, Rui thought exasperatedly. He meant well in this case and she could totally see his point, but he would’ve done better to appeal more emotionally to someone as passionate as Aizawa. The other party unsurprisingly didn’t take this well.</p><p>“If we know where Kira is now, shouldn’t we go and arrest him?” Aizawa demanded.</p><p>“Like I said,” Ryuzaki stated flatly, “charging in there will get us killed. Please try to understand.”</p><p>That was too much for Aizawa, and he grabbed Ryuzaki’s shoulder in agitation. “UKITA DIED!!! Didn’t you say that you would risk your life to arrest Kira?!”</p><p>Ryuzaki froze, his dark bottomless eyes wide with a look none present could understand.</p><p>Unbidden, a panel from one of the Death Note offshoots* popped into Rui’s head. When L was but a nameless child, he had been taken into Wammy’s orphanage, and within an hour, had started causing trouble. L had said, ‘After saying " A new face! Let's cuddle him," they employed violence against me. They are the ones who started it. I am justice.’ The children who had tried to cuddle him lay on the ground, groaning in pain from L's acts of self-defence.</p><p>What kind of child equates cuddling to violence?  That perpetual ache in her chest briefly made an appearance, but she quashed it firmly.</p><p>Setting her jaw, Rui pushed herself in between the two men. “Let go!” she demanded in stilted Japanese**, glaring determinedly at Aizawa. Surprised, he immediately did so, stepping back quickly.</p><p>Ryuzaki’s eyes remained flat, but he had gripped his shins tightly, curling up into a tighter ball.</p><p>“You’re Ryuzaki, most famous detective in the world, and Kira’s greatest opponent,” Rui said neutrally, staring calmly at his fixed gaze as the others looked on in confusion. Only Yagami senior knew a little bit of English, and he wasn't here now. “You’re strong now.”</p><p>They watched steadily as he looked down. “Risking my life and throwing it away are two very different things,” Ryuzaki began lowly, not appearing to acknowledge her words. His taut hands were visibly trembling now, but he met Aizawa's baffled gaze. “I feel the same way as you, but you must stay calm. It is too late for Ukita-san, but if Aizawa-san dies as well…”</p><p>The air around them was heavy and awkward, until good old Watari defused the tension with a pot of fresh coffee for everyone.</p><hr/><p>Rui startled and split the coffee she had been pouring as Yagami Senior’s armoured vehicle crashed into Sakura TV. Ryuzaki, on the other hand, seemed to be expecting this.</p><p>BI BI BI! Watari’s phone sounded. Yagami Sr. had used the distress signal.</p><p>“Watari, hit the return button and give me the phone,” Ryuzaki requested. “It’s me, Yagami-san. So you were the one in the armoured car?” He listened, then continued, “Yagami-san, please rest for half a minute and then boldly come out from the front entrance.”</p><p>Something was strange about this. She had the feeling that some other things had happened before Ryuzaki had asked Yagami Sr. to evacuate. Wasn’t he supposed to have called Vice-Director Kitamura for the police barricade? This time, it was almost as if-</p><p>Ryuzaki knew. He had made prior preparations for this. He hadn’t fully believed her until Ukita died, but he’d made the necessary preparations anyway. <em>Guess there’s nothing like death to make people take things seriously</em>, she thought ruefully. <em>He knew Ukita was going to die, but he had to see, huh?</em></p><hr/><p>She hastened to hold the door open as Watari helped Yagami Sr. into the hotel room. “Ryuzaki… I am sorry for acting so brashly. It seems that I got a bit too emotional,” he panted.</p><p>“It’s fine,” replied the man in question.</p><p>“The envelopes and tapes that Kira sent are all in here,” Yagami Sr. continued, passing Ryuzaki the paper bag he’d been holding.</p><p>Gingerly examining its contents, the detective finally nodded to himself, before requesting for Aizawa to analyse the evidence while he himself analysed the copy tapes.</p><p>Ryuzaki took no dinner that night.</p><hr/><p>*L ~ The Wammy’s House, from L FILE no. 15</p><p>**Here, she says simply “hanashite (はなして)!”She can understand roughly what they’re saying, but still finds it difficult to formulate a complete sentence in Japanese. She gets confused with all the particles, the verb forms, and the sentence structure.</p><p>AN: LOL, perhaps I was reaching too far ahead, but can you tell how ready I am for the end of COVID-19? I am so ready that I wrote a fic set just after the end of COVID-19. Let’s do our best, guys!</p>
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<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Debate</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Do note that this is rather a drier chapter, and you could skip it if you wanted. L and Rae will have many more such conversations, but I will not type them out in full because it will make the story drier. This is just to give an example.</p><p>TLDR: The police decided to release Kira’s video indicating their refusal of the terms. After being convinced that what she told him about DN events can be believed, L now puts his mind to analyzing whether Rae herself can be trusted. L askes Rae various questions, like where she stands with regard to the Kira issue. I believe he asked questions of this nature to the task force members when they first meet him in the hotel room, in order to profile them, and that’s why each interview took so long. Her answers surprise him, because they are lucid but nuanced. She has proven she is less likely to be swayed by Kira’s ideology, and has successfully given L and Watari a diplomatic answer. It remains to be seen whether she has convinced them of her trustworthiness.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>PLEASE READ THE CHAPTER SUMMARY. THIS IS A DRIER CHAPTER. THE NEXT CHAPTER WILL ADVANCE THE PLOT A BIT.</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>AN: (Information below comes both from tons of Quora answers, interviews with INTP people I found online, and my own experience.)</p><p>Do you know what kind of person an INTP is most likely to fall in love with?</p><p>INTPs are fascinated by people who can take and give the truth, but who may appear to be a walking contradiction.</p><p>The INTP puts up emotional walls because they are used to being misunderstood and treated harshly as if they have no feelings. A willingness to sympathise/understand/see their point of view melts them a little.</p><p>INTPs live in a world of grey, not black-and-white. Therefore, they like engaging in discussions with those who show nuance and logic in their viewpoints and ways of looking at the world. It doesn’t really matter whether the viewpoint is right or not in the first place, as long as there is an attempt at justification, and the other person is open-minded enough to participate and listen in such a discussion peacefully. INTPs enjoy debate for its own sake, and are usually conflict-averse, so this last point is very important.</p><p>I am trying to follow the above points to make this LxOC thing believable. L, however, is a… damaged INTP. He doesn’t regulate his emotions well, and he is more paranoid than your typical INTP. This makes getting closer to him a one-step-forward, two-steps-back thing.</p><hr/><p>
  <strong>April 19, 2004</strong>
</p><p>They would delay it for as long as they could, but Ryuzaki, and by extension the task force, had already decided to release the video sent by the Second Kira to indicate their rejection of the terms she set. Essentially, the police were to choose whether the Director of the Japanese police force, or L, were to die, or the Second Kira would kill off several members of various police agencies around the world in vengeance.</p><p>Rui had sympathized with Misa when she’d first read Death Note. But observing her actions now, she could not help but suspect that the model had more than a few screws loose in the head. She resolved never to let Misa or Light, but especially Misa, see her face. Even if she had to fake an autoimmune disease.</p><hr/><p>
  <strong>April 19, 2004; 21 06</strong>
</p><p>“Ah, Rui-san,” Ryuzaki immediately turned around from where he’d been staring out the window at the cityscape. “I’ve been wanting to talk with you.”</p><p>This guy sure had no chill – she’d just stepped out of the adjoining bathroom and had not been expecting anyone to be lurking around in her room. But hey, Ryuzaki does as Ryuzaki does, and perhaps it had been his intention to catch her off guard.</p><p>“Yes, Ryuzaki-san?” she replied peaceably, padding closer to him. She did her best to stand up straight even in her teddy bear pajamas. Someone, she forgot who, once said that dignity could never be taken away unless surrendered. Or something like that.</p><p>“What is your stance on Kira and justice?” he inquired outright, staring unblinkingly at her.</p><p>That surprised her. She’d expected him to want to discuss the events that happened, or the events that would happen. “May I have a seat and have a couple of minutes to organize my thoughts about it, Ryuzaki?”</p><p>His eyes never left her as she sat herself down and began fiddling with some paper and a pen. Finally, she began.</p><p>“Justice is often defined as a principle where people receive that which they deserve. For the innocent, that would mean to keep their basic human rights to dignity, work, to be safe, and more. For criminals, that would be their right to a fair trial, the chance for rehabilitation. When a crime is committed, justice often means that the criminal is punished. Speaking as a layperson with no background in law, I think that justice is a fine balance between the rights of two parties, a need to find the optimum where crimes are redressed and deterred, but criminals themselves have a chance at redemption. Some turn to crime as a result of their life circumstances. It doesn’t make what they do right, nor does it negate victim suffering, but these should be taken into account or the world will always remain rotten.”</p><p>He poured himself a cup of tea from the tray Watari had brought in. “Go on.”</p><p>“Kira’s ideals, on the surface, are noble. But they are so childish that they are doomed to remain that. Ideals,” she continued. “He is doing some good, and I daresay crime statistics will reflect that, but he does not seem to have accounted for those who have been wrongfully convicted. In my world, there was a famous case where a black man had been wrongfully convicted of rape and sentenced to 80 years in prison. He spent 44 years behind bars. Kira would have killed him here and now. What justice would have been served?”</p><p>“Kira takes action without being fully informed, nor does he seem to have set guiding principles in place for the use of his power, or he would not have killed Lind L. Tailor,” she stated firmly. “These guiding principles would ideally strike a balance between the rights of the criminal and of the victim, and they should be informed by research. For example, if it was found out that the recidivism rates of murderers on their second kill drops below a certain threshold, then perhaps Kira would be justified in killing second-offense murderers but leave first-time murderers alone. To put it bluntly, there has to be some sort of happy medium between the kill rate and the rate of crime.”</p><p>“I-“ she coughed. Her voice had given out. “Excuse me.” Pouring herself a cup of tea, she picked up her teddy bear to cuddle. L’s expression was unreadable, so she didn’t try.</p><p>“Besides Kira, there are other entities in the legal system that have to be optimized. You would need good policemen and detectives who are able to gather the right clues and come to the right conclusions without bias. You would need good judges to make the fairest decisions for the accused and the victims. Issues like corruption taint this. Perhaps the ones Kira should be killing are the corrupt, but true evil is often hidden. Kira is too childish,” she repeated, emphatically.</p><p>“It takes not one, but the efforts of many capable people, over hundreds of generations, for humanity to approach this ideal scenario. Even then, it probably won’t be perfect, because there are always exceptions that cannot be accounted for. My point still stands, however. This kind of change can only take place over decades, eons, and it may be longer if certain individuals, like despotic leaders, set humanity back. Perhaps I am being too naïve, but I still think that the world could slowly get to this point. I mean, just look at how far humanity has evolved, from Neanderthal killing, to having a justice system at all. Kira is still looking for a shortcut. Those exist only in games.”</p><p>“So.. so what I’m trying to say is that as it is, I don’t support the use of Kira’s power, but perhaps if there were clear regulations in place…” she trailed off.</p><p>“Your idea has merit. But this would have to be applied uniformly throughout the world,” Ryuzaki prompted.</p><p>“You’re right,” she agreed readily, a little disappointed. “Who would form the regulating body for this? Who would fund the research, even? Most countries are more likely to use their money for national interests like economic development. Even power divided among the hands of a few still corrupts.”</p><p>“Let’s shift topics a little. How would you define good and evil?” Ryuzaki queried, leaning forward in his customary owl-like perch on the other side of her bed.</p><p>She found this trickier to define, so she took her time mulling over it. Ryuzaki seemed fully prepared to wait all night for her answer if he had to, and she had to force herself to stay awake. “Good is Rui, and bad is Yagami Light and Ryuzaki,” she retorted tartly. Watari stifled a chuckle while L simply looked on, blank-faced, until she relented.</p><p>“Good would be actions that respect justice as a balance between rights,” she said slowly, “and evil would be the opposite. By that definition, some evil actions can be done for a good purpose and vice versa. The problem with that is that even people who have good goals but do evil actions, end up evil because they get used to doing things in evil ways. I’ll have to think on the opposite a bit more, however. I can’t think of an example where people have evil goals but do good things to get there.”</p><p>“Perhaps one example could be people who put on a social act to appear good,” Ryuzaki suggested, beginning to get absorbed in the discussion.</p><p>“It could be debated that that in itself is not an evil goal,” she responded. “Oh! Perhaps our example could be like, pimps taking in and caring for impoverished girls, but then pimping them out?”</p><p>The corners of his lips lifted a little, and his eyes gleamed. “That could be the case. How would you apply your definitions of good and evil to the Kira case?”</p><p>She supposed that he was really asking ‘am I evil? Is Kira evil?’</p><p>Restlessly, her fingers drummed a frantic rhythm against her teacup, a tic that did not go unnoticed by Ryuzaki. Shifting her weight uneasily, she nevertheless took a stab at an answer.</p><p>“Kira’s goal is to cleanse the world of criminals, and his actions to back this up are to kill. His methods are evil, his goal is not completely evil. But some criminals are good and so his goal is partly evil. Therefore, he is evil.</p><p>The task force’s goal is to stop Kira’s killing, and their intended actions are to investigate Kira within the law. Their goal is good, their actions are good, and so they are good.</p><p>You…” She hesitated, looking away from Ryuzaki uncomfortably. “You know, there are many fan theories about your motivations. Some say that you do care about justice, and that’s why you do what you do. Others say that you are interested in the puzzle, that actual justice means very little to you and you are stimulating your genius.”</p><p>“And what do you think?” This time it was Watari who spoke, his visage resembling less of a kindly old man and more of an experienced, hardened warrior.</p><p>“When there is evidence for two arguments or facts being true, I generally like to accept both and try my hardest to reconcile them,” Rui replied tersely, knowing that her answer could determine how she would be treated in the future. “What I like to believe is that Ryuzaki somehow realized that he alone could not root out all the evil of the world. It doesn’t really matter whether he saw solving crimes as a series of puzzles first, then understood the consequences of his actions, or whether he wanted justice, and then realized he would do better to pick and choose the crimes he solved. Ryuzaki is brilliant, but he is but one man.”</p><p>The tension eased a little in the room, but their faces remained blank. Exhaling a shuddering breath, she wasn’t sure if she’d passed the test or not.</p>
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<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Second Kira</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>The task force discusses the videos sent by the Second Kira, and Light is invited to the Task force meeting for the first time. This is a lighter chapter intended to move the plot on a bit.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Note: You can also find my work on fanfiction.net at https://www.fanfiction.net/~thefeyra.</p><p>Also, just to reiterate, when Rui is speaking, or when either Watari or L are speaking to her, they're using English. When Watari, L, and the task force members are speaking to one another, they're using Japanese. On the rare instances that Rui uses Japanese (usually simple sentences), I will indicate it with an asterisk and footnote.</p><hr/><p>
  <strong> <span class="u">Chapter 9: Second Kira</span> </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>April 24, 2004; 07 00</strong>
</p><p>Rui set down Ryuzaki’s slice of strawberry shortcake, along with a clean fork and a pot of tea. She was about to go check on the brewing coffee when Ryuzaki’s long fingers caught her wrist, startling her. Her gaze fell to them, their pale slimness belying their strength, and then slid up the length of his arm to his onyx orbs. Wrinkling her brows, she tilted her head at him in silent question.</p><p>He had the audacity to suddenly stain her fingers with an ink stamp, then press her fingers to his napkin. “What. Are you doing?” she queried, through narrowed eyes.</p><p>“Sampling a woman’s fingers,” he returned dully, comparing the size of her fingerprints to a sample he held between his thumb and pointer finger. Oh. Ohh. Misa’s fingerprints. Duh. Misa was a very small woman, wasn’t she? Her fingerprints would probably be even smaller. Still…</p><p>She wiped her stained fingers on Ryuzaki’s shirt sleeve and stalked off indignantly. Maybe she shouldn’t have done it, but then again he shouldn’t have dirtied her fingers without asking.</p><hr/><p>
  <strong>April 24, 2004; 11 31</strong>
</p><p>Ryuzaki sure knew how to command a room, even if he was a rude and creepy professional gaslighter, she mused, reluctantly admiring the way he explained his entire reasoning to the task force on his theory of there being a Second Kira. The bugger had changed his shirt after her little stunt, which, she reminded herself, was merely retaliation for HIS little stunt. Hey, she was <em>twenty-one</em> now. She didn’t have to act too much like an adult.</p><p>“Chief Yagami,” Ryuzaki called, drawing the investigator’s attention. “Is it possible to ask your son to help us whenever he can?”</p><p>The task force members glanced at one another, intrigued at the prospect. Yagami Sr. himself had other concerns. “Does that mean my son is free of suspicion?”</p><p>Yagami Sr. must have earned Ryuzaki’s respect with what he had done at Sakura TV, for Ryuzaki hesitated, but eventually told him the truth. Or at least, he never told Yagami Sr. a direct lie. “No… not yet,” he replied. “but your son’s profiling ability is very promising… and… I think that your son will be very helpful in capturing the Second Kira.”</p><p>Truth be told, Rui was pretty impressed at Yagami Sr.’s character, too. He bore with stoicism the idea that his own son, the light of his life, could be Kira, and didn’t attempt to protect him from L at all. His sense of duty was truly admirable. No wonder he was made Chief. No wonder people like Matsuda adored him.</p><p>Ryuzaki then proposed that Light not be told of the existence of a Second Kira, claiming that if Light truly was Kira, he would let the Second Kira kill L.</p><p>“So, if my son does not suspect a Second Kira, doesn’t he become more suspicious?” Yagami Sr. asked, a little worried.</p><p>“No, the chance that he won’t is smaller than 5%, but… Even if he doesn’t, I’ll still ask him to help us investigate the Second Kira,” Ryuzaki replied smoothly.</p><p>“Also, Watari, please stay outside and speak to me using the comm link. You will be the mirage of L,” Ryuzaki continued. Well, Rui would just have to pick up L’s caretaking. L and Watari had already agreed to the idea of Rui wearing surgical masks around the task force.</p><p>“So then, if Raito-kun agrees, tell him to come here right away,” L requested.</p><hr/><p>
  <strong>April 24, 2004; 13 00</strong>
</p><p>Rui opened the door for Matsuda and Light, smiling behind her black mask. Fiction really did not do justice to the nuances of Light’s physical appeal. It wasn’t just the perfect honey-coloured skin, glossy auburn hair and almond-shaped caramel eyes that made the man. There was a pleasing regularity and universality to his features, each one harmoniously balanced just perfectly among the rest. Light had very attractively average features that inspired a sense of familiarity and trust from the beholder of his looks, kind of boy-next-door in appeal, and yet his poise would allow him to stand out even in a line of supermodels. On top of that, there was an interesting versatility to his beauty that made it very easy for the beholder to project their own preferences onto him. It was almost as if his features could not decide how they wanted to present themselves, so that at one time he could appear more masculine, then more feminine, at the same time being cute, then hot, depending on what quality the other person chose to see in him. Rui, though she could not ever condone Misa’s obsession with him, now understood it better.</p><p>In contrast to Light, the draw of Ryuzaki’s strange, high-contrast features made itself known only with time, even though he could never be called ‘handsome’. Ryuzaki was very good at giving the impression of ugliness, exaggerating the unsettling uniqueness of his features through the cagey way he acted and formed his facial expressions. Next to Light, Ryuzaki almost looked like an alien. People reflexively recoiled from the first impression he gave off and looked no further, and she suspected Ryuzaki would rather have it that way.</p><p>From across the room, the detective must’ve felt her gaze, and his dark, intense gaze soon shifted to meet hers. She looked away. <em>Is he extraordinarily sensitive to people looking at him or something?</em></p><p>They all waited as Light watched all the videos. He seemed bothered by their silence but soldiered on like a champ. Ryuk was generally making a pest of himself, flitting about here and there, sticking his head into cupboards. He’d even asked her if she had an extra cup of coffee for him! It took all she had to not respond.</p><p>“So, did you find anything?” Ryuzaki asked innocently, his thumb on his lips. <em>This guy! </em>Rui thought with fond exasperation. Ryuzaki <strong>always</strong> looks suspicious. You always know when he’s up to something, you just don’t know what. Even if you predict what he’s going to do, you can’t predict when he’s going to do it. He makes it so obvious that the personality he displays is an act, so that you can never tell what Ryuzaki’s true personality is. This is in contrast to Light, who pretends to be innocent behind his polished social veneer (and mostly succeeds. Everyone loves him.). L probably gets on Light’s nerves a lot more than they show in canon.</p><p>The gaslighting continued even as Light directly confronted him, “Ryuuga, no, Ryuzaki, if you already knew then why were you testing me?”</p><p>“I wasn’t testing you,” Ryuzaki had the cheek to say. “I was the only one who thought about a second kira, so I needed Raito to come to the same conclusion without any hints from me. So you’ve already been a great help.”</p><hr/><p>
  <strong>April 24, 2004; 15 00</strong>
</p><p>“Ryuzaki, is that good enough? I wrote it as if I were Kira,” Light asked agreeably, passing the draft to the aforementioned detective as Ryuk continued to snicker behind him.</p><p>“…It’s not bad, but if you don’t remove the ‘it is fine with me to kill L’ part…” Ryuzaki began, then looked directly at Light. “I’ll die.” Light must’ve already gotten tired of L’s shenanigans. That was funny.</p><p>“I was just kidding. You can remove it,” Light replied with faux innocence, his hands behind his head in a relaxed position.</p><p>“Aihara-san, the draft is done,” Ryuzaki said, passing Aizawa the paper. “Please take care of the rest.”</p><hr/><p>
  <strong>April 24, 2004; 22 08</strong>
</p><p>“EEP!” Startling awake, Rui backed away, pulling the covers up to her chin in defense. She scowled when she saw the detective’s very awake owlish eyes staring at her and turned over, determined to ignore him.</p><p>“Ryuzaki,” Rui moaned irritably as the detective insistently poked at her cheek in the dark. She tried to swat him away, but he still had the advantage of being more awake. “What do you want? I’d be more polite but some of us are only human and require sleep.”</p><p>“Let’s shed some light on our subject,” Ryuzaki quipped, rather pleased with himself. That was lame, but she found her lips pulling up a little, just at the corners. Him waking her up must’ve been his way of getting back at her for dirtying his shirt. Resigned, she poured him a cup of tea.</p><p>“I’m sure you heard the conversation between Light, his father and myself at the hospital,” he began. “What did you think of the way he spoke about and to his father?”</p><p>“That was certainly the actions and role of a devoted son to his beloved father,” Rui replied. “And still… very First Kira.”</p><p>At his frown, she elaborated, “Light is your counterpart in many ways, it’s true, but his upbringing needs to be considered. Look at Yagami Sr. Sacrifice in the name of responsibility is his calling card, just look at the way he stopped Sakura TV with no heed for his own health. Or the way he works long hours away from his family.”</p><p>“You are saying that sacrifice is a part of Raito-kun’s MO as well,” Ryuzaki reiterated, his thumb tracing his lips as he weighed her words. “Sacrifice… sacrifice… it’s not completely a God complex… He sees the killing of FBI agents as a sacrifice he needs to make? Hmmm…”</p><p>“What I’m trying to say is,” she ventured tentatively. “To him, it’s also a game between you two, but more than that, he cherishes the vision of the world he has even more. There will come a time when just playing the game will no longer suffice and he’ll sacrifice his own ego for the sake of his ideal.” She swallowed. That was how L had died. *</p><p>Holding his gaze steadily, she did her best to convey the seriousness of her next statement. “There is no one else like you. Not in this world, neither in mine. Not now, and certainly not in the future. Not even Near and Mello could replace you,” she stated emphatically.</p><p>Ryuzaki tilted his head curiously at her. “Are you perturbed at the prospect of my death?” he murmured lowly, moving into her personal space to stare into her face rather creepily. Great, now even her subconscious was afraid of him, since her heart started racing automatically. She needed to break the tension, stat.</p><p>“Indeed, my life is NOTHING without you! For where thou art, there is the world itself, And where thou art not, DESOLATION!**” she declared, windmilling her arms in dramatic emphasis to keep him away while he looked on, unimpressed.</p><hr/><p>*Reference: <a href="https://www.alicesparklykat.com/articles/32/Death_Not/articles/32/Death_Note%26">https://www.alicesparklykat.com/articles/32/Death_Not/articles/32/Death_Note%26</a>. I had to do a lot of research in the process of writing this story, and I need to give credit where it’s due. This is one of the more interesting resources I found. Even if you don’t believe in astrology, the character analyses are pretty rad.</p><p>**Shakespeare’s Henry VI Part 2 – Act 3, Scene 2. No, I do not read Shakespeare, but I wanted something appropriately melodramatic and cringey like the NERD Rae is.</p><p> </p><p>AN: I am trying to mix heavier and lighter elements of the story together so that it doesn't end up too much of a downer to read. If the headcanon on L's past is right, then relationships for L are almost impossible and it's no wonder he ended up dying alone in canon.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. School</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Rae follows Ryuzaki to university. This is more of a filler chapter since we never see L at Todai even though he is enrolled.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>AN: There is quite a bit of a waiting period between Misa’s videos and the two Kiras meeting in person. Therefore, I thought it prudent to add at least one chapter showing the dynamics between L and Rae.</p><p>By the way, I don’t think I ever confirmed/mentioned that L speaks in an English accent. In canon he had no problem divulging to Light, his archenemy, that he had lived in England for 5 years, so I don’t think he’s worried about concealing his English accent.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>
    <span class="u">Chapter 10: School</span>
  </strong>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>April 28, 2004; 08 30</strong>
</p><p>Rui kept pace with Ryuzaki, auburn wig intact, long skirt fluttering around her as she skipped along happily. She was going to school with Ryuzaki! Albeit, she was wearing the scratchy auburn wig and mori girl style that was the exact opposite of her preferred style, but she was just glad for the change in scenery. Even if her red-framed plastic glasses kept slipping down her nose. Plus, now she’d get to see what L was like if he’d been a student.</p><p>Ryuzaki had elected for everyone to take a week off the investigation, ostensibly to recharge and reconvene with the goal of re-examining the evidence with fresh eyes. They’d have to wait for Misa’s diary entry anyway.</p><p>Ryuzaki had allowed himself to sleep for the next two days. Rui had been off duty the first day, during which she had ridden almost all the trains in Tokyo to no avail. Out of curiosity, she visited the place of her first employment, only to find that they had moved away. A dodgy-looking host club had taken its place, and no familiar face worked there. The handsome male touts outside the club had reminded her painfully of Ouran High School Host Club, one of the animes she had watched back before adulting became a necessity for her. It had been awkward when they caught her staring.</p><p>Watari was off duty the second day, and so Rui had been forced to stay in all day in case of L needing some assistance. She spent the entire day restless in her formal wear, practicing Japanese and doing some basic housekeeping for their suites. The hotel’s housekeeping service had been instructed to avoid their rooms, and so the rooms’ upkeep had to be done by her or Watari. L dropped sugar and crumbs EVERYWHERE.</p><p>On the third day, Ryuzaki had awoken, and had decided to go to Todai for once. He was still a student there, after all, and he also wanted to observe Light in his natural habitat. In canon, it was never mentioned which classes Light and Ryuzaki took, but it turns out it was a combination of criminal psychology, forensics, advanced life sciences, advanced chemistry and vernacular/journalism/interpersonal communication classes. Ryuzaki had deliberately picked almost the same combination as Light’s, though he’d skipped advanced chemistry.</p><p>When Rui heard of this, she excitedly requested for L to take her, so that she could sit in on these classes, even if she couldn’t fully comprehend them. Canon showed too little of these scenes for her liking, and forensics and criminal psychology sure sounded interesting. The class was huge anyway, so they figured it’d be unlikely that an extra presence would be noticed.</p><p>As it turned out, Ryuzaki could be inconspicuous if he wanted to. They sat to the right of the lecture theatre, a few seats away from the exit, and a few rows from the front. Not quite far away enough that they would be called upon, but not too much to the front where they couldn’t observe Yagami Light undetected.</p><p>Yagami Light was a perfect student and classmate. He spoke up in class where appropriate, just enough to be noticed, but not so often that he would be resented for his capability. He chatted with different peers before and after class, but he mostly kept to himself during the lesson, the quintessential eager student. He sure spent a lot of energy on maintaining his pristine image, didn’t he? She’d have been tuckered out three hours in if she were him.</p><p>Ryuzaki spent most of his time on his laptop, reviewing case evidence and solving random puzzles. Sometimes, he passed handwritten notes to Rui soliciting her opinion on different topics which ranged from her opinion of Hideki Ryuuga and the pop culture in her world, to the feasibility of supplementing Watari’s services with robots and the most politically-correct stances taken in her world. He never supplied his own thoughts on these topics, which made the interactions less fun than they could’ve been. His handwriting was the crappiest she’d ever seen, kind of pointed and narrow, going horizontally across the page, but with a barely restrained dynamism, if that made any sense.</p><p>If Ryuzaki was an aspie* as many DN fans suspected, he must be a high-functioning one, for he proved himself fully capable of going about daily life, even if it was because he went under the radar and interacted with no one. Plus, he showed a very profound understanding of emotional profiling. Near, in contrast, was dependent on support and care from his team to function. Was that why he had avoided choosing a successor? Perhaps he knew that either one of them alone would not cut it. She wondered about his education. He’d probably been homeschooled, but was it by Watari alone? If so, then was Watari’s intellectual capacity on par with L’s? Stuff like criminal psychology was specialized knowledge – how did L learn? Or was it self-taught?</p><p>Her gaze slid down to his long, slim fingers, which were currently engaged in typing on his laptop keyboard. She’d once read that L could have Marfan Syndrome, which would explain his bent posture and underweight appearance. Seeing him in person, she doubted that was the case, for in the absence of Yagami Light’s direct scrutiny, he did not slouch as much. On a side note, neither had he bothered to have his eyebrows shaved today.</p><p>Tilting her head, she watched as he traced his thumb along his lips. He did not eat as much sugary food as he was portrayed to in the anime, although he did bring out sugar packets that he would guzzle nearly every couple hours. Some white sugar granules remained on his cracked lips, giving them an even paler appearance.</p><p>With a start, she realized that his eyes were looking sideways, directly at her, in an intense but completely unreadable stare. How long had he been watching her watch him?</p><p>A few uncomfortable seconds passed between them, before she blinked and took out a tube of lip balm and some wet tissue paper. Holding it out to him with a hasty smile, she indicated that he should use them. He continued to stare. This was the same guy who needed her to dress him. Did he want her to do it for him?</p><p>“Excuse me,” she muttered, uneasily, very slowly reaching out with the tissue paper to give him ample time to react. She wiped gently at his lips, noting that they were actually fuller than they appeared.</p><p>As she reached out with the lip balm, he unexpectedly caught her wrist, narrowing his eyes at her. His grip was hard enough to bruise. In that moment, a chill went down her spine. Had she overstepped his boundaries? How could she have forgotten? This was the same guy who sacrificed Ukita for the sake of an experiment. Given an absolute choice between someone else’s welfare and his paranoia, Ryuzaki would almost always choose to pacify his paranoia.</p><p>The only way to be by L was to become one of his people, the way Watari was. He had already proven himself capable and willing to neutralize perceived threats to him - it was said that imposters claiming to be L often met unfortunate ends.</p><p>“I-It’s, uh, safe,” she forced herself to reply, uncertainly, watching as he applied the lip balm himself, holding her gaze the entire time. With shaky hands she moved to take it back, but he simply put it into his pocket and turned his attention back to his laptop.</p><p>Ryuzaki frightened her, and she would do well not to forget that. She’d already screwed up once. Would he get rid of her if she proved useless, or was she overthinking this?</p><p>
  <em>“You don’t remember how the two Kiras met?” Ryuzaki’s voice had been more chilling, more demanding than she had ever heard it.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“I’m sorry, Ryuzaki,” Rui demurred quietly, eyes lowered to his collarbone instead of his eyes. “All I remember is that she saw him from a café.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He did not say anything in reply, but she got the feeling that she’d failed an expectation, somehow. She did not sleep well that night.</em>
</p><hr/><p>
  <strong>April 28, 2004; 12 30</strong>
</p><p>Ryuzaki and Rui were seated in the booth just behind Light’s and Kiyomi’s, eating shortcake and listening in to the soon-to-be couple’s conversation. The Prince and Princess of the campus were debating something from their global politics course. Ryuk wasn’t around.</p><p>Seiso Takada had been a side character in DN, and Rui had never paid much attention to her. However, grace was her calling card. Grace was inherent in every movement Kiyomi made, every shift in her expression, and in every word softly spoken. Her skin was snow-like, her hair like silky ebony, and her dark grey eyes like precious pearls from the ocean. She carried herself with the expectation that she would be the centre of attention, and she was. Kiyomi was also already a Kira supporter.</p><p>“Kiyomi-san,” Light suddenly said. “Please go out with me.” She would normally have made some wisecracking comment on this to amuse herself, but Ryuzaki and her sat in tense silence.</p><p>His persistent silence after the lip gloss stunt was wearing on her, along with her worries of his intentions. Her continued failure to find a way home wore on her, too, exacerbated by the heartache that arose every time she saw little reminders of her old life.</p><p>She caught sight of some bone broth soup a schoolmate was carrying on her tray.</p><p>
  <em>“Rae! Here is Mom’s special collagen soup!” exclaimed her mother. “Us ladies need to take care of ourselves! Drink this to keep beautiful and young!”</em>
</p><p>A sudden pang of crippling homesickness hit her, and in that moment, Rui <em>really</em> wanted her mother.</p><p>“…Hey, Ryuzaki,” she began timidly, almost not wanting to hear the answer. “Where is my old passport?”</p><p>He took his time eating his cake, only looking up at her when he had finished. “Our mutual friend needs only a face. I thought it prudent to dispose of them to ensure your safety.”</p><p>Setting her jaw, she pushed her half-eaten cake away, well aware of his observation of her, but too sick at the destruction of her last link to her old identity to really care. She understood his rationale, she really did. If she were never to return to her world, no one could know of the circumstances surrounding her existence here, ever. If she were able to return, she could always have a new passport made. <em>But still…still…</em></p><p>“Are you going to eat that?” Ryuzaki gestured to her cake with his fork, his mouth still full with his own.</p><p>She blinked. “No,” she replied dazedly, pushing it towards him. “No, you can have it, Ryuzaki.”</p><p>That was the last conversation they had for the rest of the day.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>*Aspie: Informal way of referring to someone with Asperger’s Syndrome. It’s used as a self-description by aspies on Quora, so I don’t think it’s offensive, but please, do let me know if you would prefer I change it.</p><p>AN: L does almost everything with the intention to manipulate.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Meltdown</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Rui experiences a bit of a meltdown as the stresses she's been repressing catch up to her - some of it valid, others not. This is probably the most honest L has ever been with her and they arrive at a new, tentative understanding of each other.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>AN: Rui has been dealing too well with things thus far, hasn’t she? She’s actually Queen of Repression. Well, her and L are Royals of Repression.</p><p>The story gets trickier to write after this chapter because it's pretty dry in the manga, up until Misa gets arrested. Also, I can't really make up my mind on what parts of canon should change, mostly because I cannot make up my mind on how to characterise L. I had one characterisation of him when I first started, but then I saw that it would lead to this becoming a tragedy/abusive kind of story which I don't want. </p><p>This is intended to be a redemption fic for L. Thus, there will probably be quite a delay in my next chapter until I figure out what to do.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong> <span class="u">Chapter 11: Meltdown</span> </strong>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>April 29, 2004</strong>
</p><p>Rui tossed and turned all night. She was half-asleep, but she couldn’t get into a comfortable position at all. She threw off the blankets, for she was too hot, then pulled them back over herself when she felt too cold. Her mind was racing with half-formed thoughts, her heart felt like it was going to vibrate right out of her chest, and she was starting to get a pounding headache.</p><p>This had been her usual sleeping pattern ever since she’d entered this world, but when she sat up, stumbling closer into wakefulness, she knew she’d reached her breaking point. The blood pounded in her ears and a vein throbbed at her temple. She couldn’t stay here in this hotel room anymore, the room where she’d been confined in for the past 2 months. Yet, she couldn’t leave, for fear of needlessly arousing Ryuzaki’s paranoia.</p><p>Taking in a shaky breath, she closed her eyes tightly to try and forget where she was. A sense of claustrophobia overwhelmed her being and she balled her fists tightly, hugging her teddy bear close to her for comfort.</p><p>She’d tried, really she had. She’d tried to avoid facing the very-real possibility that she might never go home again, might never again see her mother, her brother, and the few friends she’d made, and just when they were getting closer, too. She missed the constant warm heat of her country, the familiar shapes of the cityscape she had grown up in. A tear slipped from her tightly shut lids as her heart began to ache. Huh, she’d never thought heartache could be literal.</p><p>She’d done her best to be strong. For the past 2 months, Ryuzaki had been gaslighting her. If you asked her what he did or said, she couldn’t tell you, but she just knew he’d been doing it. She worried about Ryuzaki and his hair-trigger paranoia, and about Watari, whose loyalty to Ryuzaki came first. Ryuzaki had already proven that he didn’t care that much about human lives compared to the need to assuage his paranoia. Ukita had been valuable. She was not. She was only a regular civilian girl with no training, no means of helping advance Ryuzaki’s aim to defeat Kira. She did her best to keep him happy, but he was so blank-faced that she often had no idea she was doing anything wrong until he reacted. A choked sob escaped her despite her clenched jaw, and tremors began to wrack her crumpled frame. She really wanted to scream, but did not want to alert either of them.</p><p>The one insurance she’d had against the possibility of him choosing to sacrifice her had been her foreknowledge of canon events, but even that wasn’t perfect. Who in their right minds would remember every single plot point to the letter when it’d been ten-ish years since she’d read the manga? If she’d known this would happen, she would gladly have read the books cover to cover at least ten times (or better yet, pack them in her luggage case before her trip). Her composure completely cracked as she realized there wasn’t really anything to protect her – she was an unknown in this world, easy to get rid of if he wished it so, and she wouldn’t see him coming until it was too late. Burying her face into her pillow, she sobbed as quietly as she could, ignoring the snot that was starting to hamper her breathing.</p><p>She had no one to talk to about this. No one else knew about the circumstances of her existence in this world, and no one would. That realization chilled her to the bone and she’d never felt as alone and abandoned as she did in that instant. Who was she? Was she still Rae Wong, 26-year-old Chinese girl? Ryuzaki had destroyed the last evidence of her old identity. Would that girl cease to exist if she could not return home? What if she forgot herself?</p><p>“Why are you crying?” a familiar, monotone voice asked. She choked on her own saliva and tears and whipped around to face the door, recoiling a little when she caught sight of the detective’s hunched silhouette.</p><p>Oh, right, the surveillance cameras and bugs. He, the creeper he was, had probably been watching for a while. Can’t a woman cry in peace?</p><p>She stared at him for a long moment, unsure of what to say, wanting to continue but not knowing how he would react. He, in turn, stared back at her with eyes stretched open so wide that whites surrounded his impenetrable irises, chewing on the tip of his thumb. She tensed as he shuffled closer into the room.</p><p>“You’re… afraid of me,” he observed calmly. <em>No, duh!</em></p><p>She watched him with teary, unblinking eyes as he sauntered his way over to her, looming over her side of the bed. Peering at her face, he frowned visibly, then proceeded to wrap her in her blanket like a roll. What the hell did he think he was doing?</p><p>“Deep pressure therapy*. It will balance your autonomic nervous system so that you’ll be calm and be better able to regulate your emotions,” came the matter-of-fact reply to her unvoiced question. “I’ve used it before, myself.” The detective frowned, biting his thumb as he considered her wrapped form.</p><p><em>What now?</em> She thought uncharitably. At least annoyance was beginning to replace the cloud of fear, sadness and confusion that was affecting her senses.</p><p>Without any warning, he climbed up on the bed beside her and laid half his body weight on top of her. “Not enough pressure was applied,” he said blandly. <em>The nerve of this guy!</em></p><p>Something about this was niggling at her sleepy mind. A guy like him… She was sure that he would’ve been flustered, well, as much as he was able, at the sight of a hysterical crying jag like the one she was exhibiting. It was almost as if he had expected and planned for this scenario-</p><p><em>Oh, that bastard. He’d done this on purpose.</em> Perhaps her perpetual outward serenity had worked against her. Perhaps she had said or done something to set off the hair-trigger alarm bells in his head. Whatever the case, he had seen the need to crack her open, to strip the equanimity from her social veneer, to study exactly what lay beneath.</p><p>“Yes, I had accounted for that, but not for its severity,” he agreed, predicting her thought pattern again. He almost sounded remorseful. He didn’t seem to be faking it, and him faking it would not fit his MO, either. He was a liar, there was no doubt, but he wasn’t the kind of guy to bother with social niceties like false sympathy.</p><p>She thought back again to his reaction when Ukita had died. Ukita’s death had unsettled him, which had in turn made him vulnerable to Aizawa’s outcry. But he’d done it anyway. Her distress now affected him. But he’d done that to her anyway.</p><p>She’d been wrong; Ryuzaki didn’t sacrifice people because he had no feelings. He sacrificed people <em>in spite of</em> his feelings. What had he seen – to cling only to his paranoia and his pride in solving cases? Had he nothing else in his life?</p><p>She didn’t know what to think about him. On the one hand, she understood, to a less severe extent, the need to question everything in one’s surroundings. It was probably worse for him because of the dangerous nature of his job, which mired him in the ugliest aspects of humanity. On the other hand, he really had no right to do this to her at all.</p><p>She glared at him poisonously, and then sighed again heavily. She really wanted to slap his face upside down, scream at him, cry some more and then get the hell out of dodge forever, but she knew also that trying to resist him was like kicking a concrete wall – your foot got broken and the wall remained intact. What to do?</p><p>You know what? She wasn’t done crying. If he wanted to see her at her most vulnerable, she’d show him. She wasn’t weak for crying; it was a good way of relieving stress so that she didn’t end up like him. And if it made him all the more uncomfortable, well, he asked for it.</p><p>She could feel him watching wordlessly, whether in sick fascination or distress she didn’t know, but she screamed and let the tears and snot run down her face as she cursed the world, cursed him, and cursed her circumstances. Why did they think she would like being here? What right did they have to transport her here and subject her to this indignity and this farce of a detective case? He was surprisingly warm and comforting on top of her, and she took what comfort she could get.</p><p>She didn’t know how long her tantrum lasted, but finally her tears died down into involuntary sniffs, and he took something out from his back pocket. It turned out to be some chocolate which he unwrapped and held up to her lips.</p><p>“This’ll help,” he said. <em>Was this guy serious? </em>She considered resisting, for she had brushed her teeth, but was too tired, so she obligingly let him place it in her mouth. She took her time savoring its taste. It was surprisingly good, but she wasn’t going to ask for another. They stared at each other in the darkness.</p><p> “If you want to help me, then tell me, truthfully for once, are you going to test me in such an emotionally damaging way again?” she demanded archly.</p><p>He propped his face on one of his arms as he considered her. She didn’t know what he was thinking but she pressed her lips against each other, determined not to be the one to break the silence.</p><p>“…No,” he replied, finally looking away. He wasn’t lying this time either.</p><p>“In any case,” he continued, “I thought you might like to know that a trust fund has been set aside for you in case Watari and I end up… incapacitated.”</p><p>She stared at him incredulously as he continued to avoid her eyes. “Why-“ she cut herself off, thinking. How should she proceed from here? He would’ve anticipated that his gaslighting would no longer work on her, which meant that it was unlikely he’d continue with them. Could she leave him and Watari? No, he would find her, and then he would never trust her again (not that he ever showed he did). Could she throw her lot in with Kira instead? No, Kira would kill her after.</p><p>Why was he testing her so intensively? He was afraid. No, she understood. He <em>wanted</em> to trust her, and was trying to find a reason not to. Why did he want to trust her?</p><p>
  <em>“There are many types of monsters that scare me,” Ryuzaki had said through his webcam, to the curiosity of the children in Wammy’s Orphanage. “Lying monsters are a real nuisance: They are much more cunning than others. They pose as humans even though they have no understanding of the human heart; they eat even though they’ve never experienced hunger; they study even though they have no interest in academics; they seek friendship even though they do not know how to love. If I were to encounter such monsters, I would likely be eaten by them… because in truth, I am that monster.”**</em>
</p><p>
  <em>They seek friendship even though they do not know how to love.</em>
</p><p>“You are free to leave as soon as the Kira case is wrapped up. In the meantime, all necessary protection will be accorded you,” Ryuzaki added. He still wasn’t lying. Was he… trying to reassure her? That was oddly nice of him. The last vestiges of her fear towards him dissolved like sugar in a cup.</p><p> “Thank you, Ryuzaki,” she finally said, trying for a gentler tone. He didn’t respond, so she tried to nestle closer. That was okay, right?</p><p>He smelled warm, soft and clean, like the lavender-scented ultra soft softboy*** he most definitely wasn’t. Watari must’ve used some good fabric softener. She leaned closer and boldly breathed in his scent, ignoring the weighty gaze on her that made her pulse speed up. <em>What? Two could play at that game.</em> If he didn’t want her acting like a creeper, he shouldn’t have set an example. In any case, he didn’t move away so that must’ve meant he was okay with it.</p><p>His oddly-comforting warmth and weight eventually made her doze off.</p>
<hr/><p>*Deep pressure therapy: <a href="https://quilityblankets.com/blogs/news/a-complete-guide-to-deep-pressure-therapy-dpt#:~:text=Deep%20Pressure%20Therapy%20(DPT)%2C,sensory%20input%20is%20deemed%20important">https://quilityblankets.com/blogs/news/a-complete-guide-to-deep-pressure-therapy-dpt#:~:text=Deep%20Pressure%20Therapy%20(DPT)%2C,sensory%20input%20is%20deemed%20important</a>. It just seems like something that is both weird and efficient, like something L would do.</p><p>** Taken wholesale from Ryuzaki’s monster speech in the OVA Relight 2: L's successors.</p><p>***I first came across this phrase from the Webtoon ‘Freaking Romance’ by Snailord. Best to put in as many real-world references as I can to make this story believable lol</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>This emotional breakdown was long overdue. Both L and Rae are as bad as each other in terms of how easy it is to arouse their paranoia, and L definitely used that against Rae to test her.</p><p>I think L actually feels things deeply even though he keeps a calm façade. I mean, in canon we see that he needs to eat a lot of sugary foods the longer the investigation proceeds, he has to practice a combat sport, he bites his fingernails and he seems to slouch more in situations he perceives as more dangerous.</p><p>Perhaps I should go also into just how dark a character L is. Since young, he’s been by himself and has been solving cases; what has he seen? Maybe drug trafficking rings, women and children forced into slavery and prostitution, lives destroyed because of unscrupulous conmen who steal retirement savings and leave the elderly destitute, corrupt government, etc. Maybe, some of these people he caught were rich enough to buy their way out of trouble, and that’s why he’s got enemies. He can’t trust the law, he can’t trust anyone. He only sees the dark side of life and doesn’t interact with normal people, so he doesn’t see the positive side of life. Even Watari himself… I don’t think he’s such a benign character. Watari was the one who put Misa under mild torture when they were trying to extract her confession, even if it was under L’s instructions. Making a kid solve crimes, even if he is a genius? Cultivating more geniuses to take over L? Not providing therapy or something for L? There’s something messed up there.</p><p>L is OOC here because if I’d written him truer to character, this would’ve turned out to be LxOC Stockholm Syndrome. Instead, I’m going to headcanon here that he does subconsciously want to bond with someone. After all, he never trusted Yotsuba!Light but ended up caring a little (just a little) for him because they were compatible intellectually. Here, Rae is even more innocent than Yotsuba!Light and already shows signs of wanting to connect with and understand him. How could he resist that? He has shown in canon he genuinely cherishes conventionally good characters, like Yagami Soichirou and Aizawa.</p><p>I’ve rewritten this chapter like, 5 times because I didn’t want too much toxicity in this story. What do you think?</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. Communication</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>The Second Kira responds to the police's impersonation of Kira. Rui and Ryuzaki then have a conversation about Rem and memes.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>AN: I’m sorry, I messed up the timeline. This sequence of events actually happened on April 26, but let’s set it to May 3.</p><p>Long, rambling chapter. No romance yet, I'm sorry.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong> <span class="u">Chapter 12: Communication</span> </strong>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>May 3, 2004, 14 00</strong>
</p><p>The Second Kira must be responding soon to Kira’s impersonation of Kira’s message. Rui chuckled to herself as she supplemented Ryuzaki’s dinner with protein and multivitamin powder. L never ate anything that wasn’t dessert, and this had been Watari’s MO for the past… number of years that he’d been raising him. Apparently, there was a specific protein powder brand that presented the least detectable taste. Also, she had to be careful not to add too much, or Ryuzaki would turn up his nose at it. At least he ate fruit willingly, so that was one aspect of his nutrition that was taken care of.</p><p>It had been awkward the first couple of days after Rui’s crying fit. Ryuzaki must have turned off her alarm, for the sun was high in the sky by the time she opened her swollen, gummy eyes. It had done her a world of good, however. Drained of the pent-up emotions that had been clouding her thought processes without her awareness, Rui was able to think more calmly.</p><p>Ryuzaki had still been at the dining table when she’d burst in, breathless from the strain of getting ready in a jiffy. He had stared at her over his mountain of eclairs, then offered her the morning off.</p><p>“Ryuzaki, the second Kira responded,” said Watari through the screen. Light glanced at it with the corners of his mouth slightly downturned. Perhaps he was still wondering how many Ls there really were.</p><p>“Kira-san! Thanks for replying! I’ll do everything Kira-san said,” Misa’s video played. Light did not seem happy. “I want to meet Kira-san. I think Kira-san still doesn’t have the eyes, but don’t worry! I won’t kill Kira-san no matter what!” Come to think of it, why <em>did</em> Misa make the eye trade in the first place? Had she no regard for her life? Most women would kill to be in her position, and she was destined to rise even further to stardom. Had she gotten any therapy after her family’s death? How long was the lifespan Gelus granted her? And how did she get two Shinigami to love her? Rui had the impression that Misa hadn’t been very smart in canon, but perhaps she’d just been overshadowed by the two intellectual titans in their ego battle? So many questions. </p><p>The officers were listening in consternation. “He said ‘doesn’t have the eyes’. What does that mean?” Aizawa wondered.</p><p>“Please think of a way to meet without getting caught by the police,” Misa’s video continued. “When we meet, we can just confirm each other’s identity with our God of Death.” She was still using a voice scrambler. Rui… knew nothing of such devices; they were probably banned in her own country. Were they easy to obtain and decode?</p><p>Huh. Ryuzaki didn’t fall down this time, though he looked even more pallid than usual, his dark eye circles like smeared ink on his paper-like skin. Perhaps it wasn’t the time to think about this, but how did he keep such flawless skin? She never had to help him shave in the mornings, and his torso was mostly hairless, too. It could be indicative of low testosterone levels, but she surmised that it was probably just genetics.</p><p>“Ryuzaki, you can’t help that people talk about nonsense like Gods of Death,” said Light, looking like butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. Ryuk was literally smirking just behind him.</p><p>“Perhaps this tape is the same Kira who killed those victims in jail? Since they talk with the same…” Yagami Sr. chimed in.</p><p>“That’s not it, dad,” Light cut in. “If this were the old Kira, he wouldn’t respond to our fake tape. He wouldn’t be so foolish as to play this game and make it unnecessary for L to reveal himself on TV and get killed.”</p><p>Privately, Rui wondered if Ryuzaki was in fact making a mistake in letting Light get so close to him and getting the teen so used to the way he liked to operate.</p><p>“Then maybe the real Kira and the Second Kira have contacted each other and are using things like ‘shinigami’ to confuse us?” Aizawa suggested. Come to think of it, Light was still a resource-less student, right? Why was Ryuzaki going so far for him? It seemed to her like Ryuzaki’s death had in fact deified Light.</p><p>Beyond Birthday would probably have been pissed if he knew about this. He’d done virtually everything he could think of to try and get L’s attention by being the unbeatable brilliant criminal, and L didn’t even come in person. But L had even shown his face to Light, started a mutual obsession with him and called him (would call him?) his first friend all in an effort to win this case. And how did Beyond Birthday even die? Nobody, not even the fans, knew his true name. Unless Beyond Birthday really was his name? But the novel mentioned that that was what he’d called himself. Rui found herself wondering what name Shinigami eyes would see if they were to rest on her face.</p><p>“Then maybe ‘shinigami’ is a codeword for their common ability to kill? We can just confirm our identities with our Shinigami would mean that they can prove their identities by killing someone on the spot,” Light was saying. <em>Bullshit</em>.</p><p>“… I agree,” Ryuzaki said, staring intently at Light. He’d been pretty ready to believe in Shinigami in canon, hadn’t he? He’d also briefly entertained the notion of Kira being an actual God, before he’d dismissed it as childishness. Was Ryuzaki religious? No, he hadn’t been enthused at the prospect of gods being real.</p><p>“At the very least, it is certain that ‘shinigami’ is something the two Kiras have in common…” Ryuzaki was saying. Then he glanced at Rui meaningfully. “It will help us a lot if we can find out more about it.”</p><p>Thankfully the others didn’t notice. No, wait, Light was watching her from the corner of his eye.</p><p>“What do we do now? Reply?” Yagami Sr. asked, luckily drawing his attention away. “If we do it wrong, he will find out that we don’t know anything and that we’re not Kira.”</p><p>“No, we will leave it to the two Kiras to make the next move,” Ryuzaki decided. “For the Second Kira to make a reply now, assuming he hasn’t figured out that the response is a fake, he must be fairly content with the situation. His goal to catch the attention of Kira has been achieved.”</p><p>“Using words that only they would understand, the imposter plans to give Kira the message today on Sakura TV’s 6 o’clock news. On the other hand, the real Kira must be paying close attention to the exchange between us and Second Kira. Kira must want to minimize contact between the Second Kira and police.</p><p>“Maybe the real Kira will end up sending his own message,” he continued. “Right now, the only medium we can use is Sakura TV.”</p><p>“It’s pretty obvious that the Second Kira is not good with technology nor is he smart or disciplined. So, if he doesn’t get any reply from Kira about his message, what will he do? If the foolish Second Kira starts to leak out Kira’s secrets, then Kira will want to meet the second one as well. That will be interesting.”</p><p>As in canon, surveillance was set up around each TV station to try and apprehend the Kiras. Light’s hands were tied, and he knew it, too. They had nothing to worry about until Misa’s next message.</p>
<hr/><p>
  <strong>May 3, 2004; 20 01</strong>
</p><p>Ryuzaki already made it obvious that he wanted to speak to her, so Rui hung about in the sitting room after the task force had left. There was the funky smell of men who had been in the same clothes all day, and she was thankful for her surgical mask, even if it made her cheeks itch.</p><p>“The Second Kira appears more powerful than the first,” Ryuzaki stated, with no preamble. She wasn’t surprised at this point; he was the kind of guy who dumped the contents of the sugar bowl into his tea before anyone could ask if he wanted one or two spoonfuls.</p><p>“Yes,” Rui agreed. “Not only does she have Shinigami eyes which require only a face, but she also has a Shinigami loyal to her. Ryuk, the Shinigami attached to the first Kira, isn’t on anyone’s side but his own. He simply wants to entertain himself with humans’… malarkey.”</p><p>“Rem is different. She watched, fascinated, as the other Shinigami, Gelus, sacrificed himself to save Amane Misa. To her, Misa is the rightful owner of Gelus’ Note.”</p><p>Rem had been surprised when Misa had declared she would use it for the first Kira, which had deepened her fascination with the idea of selflessness in the form of loving sacrifice and made her want to watch over Misa longer. Perhaps, to a being as grotesque as herself, it was a different way of living that would elevate what she was made to be, one that wasn’t dominated by apathy, aimlessness, and selfish gain at the expense of another being.</p><p>But… Misa had been selfish, too. Kira had not asked for her help, but she would later push it on him anyway. She’d been killing for her obsession with Kira.</p><p>“I think… I think Rem has a very naïve concept of nobility and selflessness,” Rui said slowly, trying to put into words the niggling intuition she had. “Second Kira was ready to kill and die for first Kira, and Rem admired Second Kira for that. She idealized people who didn’t act for their own benefit, even if they weren’t actually ‘good’.”</p><p>Snapping out of her reverie, she nearly jumped about an inch as Ryuzaki’s buggy eyes enveloped her vision, his warm breath tickling her face. Did he have to do that?</p><p>“This cake is dosed,” he said flatly, waving the plate of protein-dosed cheesecake at her. <em>Translation: I don’t want it.</em></p><p>Sighing, she took a forkful as he tracked her every motion with those eyes. It tasted fine to her, but they both needed food they did not currently have stocked up.</p><p>“Shall we go get something to eat?” she asked. He just stared. Oh wait. This was L, the social recluse. She mentally shrugged as she shrugged on her jacket, making sure the credit card he’d given her for their expenses was in the breast pocket, and stepped out the door.</p><p>He was right behind her. “There’s a waffle shop close by,” he said, scratching the top of one foot against the back of his leg as she whipped around to peer at him in puzzlement. So… he wanted to come along. Okay then. She supposed he’d already weighed the risks – Light had already gone home, and this particular hotel was located in the business district. Misa wasn’t likely to be lurking about. Maybe ‘Eau d’Homme’, courtesy of the task force men, was too much for him, too. Plus, waffles were awesome. Rui found his shoes for him and they were soon off.</p><p>She kept her gaze on him surreptitiously as he shuffled along slightly behind her, back slouched and hands in his pockets. The waffle place was in the next building, so they arrived there in no time at all.</p><p>She ordered hers with maple syrup and berries. He, of course, ordered all the toppings and drenched his waffles in the rest of the syrup. She paid, then turned around to see that he’d crouched himself at a booth furthest away from the entrance, partially hidden by a large potted plant.</p><p>She slid into the seat opposite his a little clumsily, a plate of waffles in each hand. She wondered briefly about Watari, but surely the old man could take care of himself. On the other hand, it seemed like Ryuzaki wanted her to continue speaking, that silent expectation hanging in the air between them.</p><p>“So… you know memes? Ideas, usually comedic, that spread virally over the Internet in the form of pictures and videos and which die down almost as quickly as they started?” Rui ventured, then took a forkful of her waffle. He seemed like the kind of guy to become a mega-troll on the Internet in his free time.</p><p>“Would you happen to be referring to the pictures you saved on the device you brought from your world?”</p><p>Oh, she’d forgotten about her smartphone. Had she any incriminating photos on there? Nodding in response to his question, she started mentally going through what she had stored.</p><p>“Yes, I thought that might be the case. LawLight, was it?” Ryuzaki continued dryly, making her bite her tongue.</p><p>Crap. Was her fujoshi karma coming back to bite her in the behind? In her defense, it was a very popular pairing in the Death Note fandom. Every fan knew about it, whether or not they liked the BL genre. Plus, him and Light were totally asking for it with their mutual obsession. She watched him warily, unable to tell what he thought about the fanart she’d saved in her gallery way back. He seemed to be looming closer and closer, not seeming to need to blink.</p><p>“Uhhh…” What could she say? She speared a strawberry and popped it in her mouth mutely.</p><p>Some of those illustrations were rather… imaginative, I must say,” he goaded her, still keeping that same dry tone. “Unfortunately, Raito-kun is not a viable candidate. I would certainly need a willing partner.”</p><p>He didn’t deny it! Her BL-loving heart sang. “Well, yeah, of course,” she mumbled around her strawberry giddily, feeling the urge to giggle.</p><p>She watched as he briefly studied his waffle before fixing his void-like stare on her again. Was he… amused? She had the feeling that she wasn’t getting something, like there’d been a joke and it had whooshed over her head completely.</p><p>Feeling oddly discombobulated, Rui looked away, taking a sip of water to stall. “S-so you like both men and women? ‘S cool if you do.” Why did she say that? She should’ve been trying to change the subject to something less awkward.</p><p>He looked her over intently, then leaned closer again, nibbling at his index finger. “Well, theoretically it shouldn’t matter what gender they are,” he mumbled around his finger.</p><p>Ha! She KNEW it. “Does Rui like men and women, too?” he asked curiously, his eyes wide and guileless-looking, his thumb pressed so tightly to his lips that they parted a little.</p><p>Was this a test? She didn’t see how the answer mattered either way. “Theoretically, it shouldn’t matter to me too,” she said slowly, “but I don’t really know. I’ve only ever had crushes on men.”</p><p>He leaned forward suddenly into her personal space, catching her off guard and causing her to bang her knee against the table. “Between Matsuda and Raito-kun, who would Rui date if she had to pick?”</p><p>Huh? How did they get from memes to her taste in men? But he seemed to really want her answer. She considered it carefully.</p><p>Matsuda was pretty okay, she conceded, as far as men went. But he seemed like the kind of person to adjust his opinion rather quickly, depending on what the rest of the task force members said. He also seemed like the kind of person to be overly interested in others’ private lives. Plus, wasn’t there the slightly disturbing fact that Matsuda had wanted to watch Light ‘in action’ with Takada? She didn’t doubt that he had his heart in the right place with regard to the Kira investigation, and he seemed like a real joy to talk to with his perpetual cheer, but she wasn’t sure she liked someone like that.</p><p>And Yagami Light? Seriously? She could not help but remember the contemptuous way he’d thought of Misa and Kiyomi after their catfight, or the way he’d trampled all over his own good will as Memoryless Light after he’d regained his memories. She could not forget the way Yagami Light had driven Misora Naomi to her undignified suicide, nor the way he’d lost all self-respect and dignity at Ryuzaki’s grave, laughing madly as he got down on all fours like some monster in a mad parody of some obscene act*. No, Raito-kun repulsed her greatly.</p><p>Both of them were shitty options, and she told Ryuzaki so.</p><p>A horrible thought struck her. “Say, Ryuzaki, you wouldn’t happen to be planning to test me by drawing either of their attentions to me, would you?”</p><p>He finally leaned back, tracing his thumb along his mouth. What, was he calculating percentages again? <em>Nope, nope, nope. Time to suck up.</em></p><p>She took a breath. “Look here, Ryuzaki- Give me your hand-“ She twined their pinkies together, then pressed the tip of her thumb against his, “Our fates are intertwined, okay? I’d choose you over them both, that’s a promise!”</p><p>He stilled, thumb remaining motionless in his mouth as he stared down at their hands. Had she come on too strong?</p><p>Feeling awkward, she let go. “Hey Ryuzaki, you know there’s a bunch of memes about you by your fans? I saw one where you were Sailor Mars and Raito-kun was Sailor Moon!”</p><p>The best way to get out of an awkward situation was to pretend it never happened.</p>
<hr/><p>* I swear, the way Light acted when he was alone at L’s grave creeped me out so badly that I didn’t sleep well the night I saw it :/ If you want to refer to it, just search up ‘L funeral scene death note’ in youtube or something.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>AN: Come on, LawLight is like, a standard fixture of this fandom. How could I not poke fun a little by mentioning it? The last part of this wasn’t really plot, but I wanted to show them interacting. She talks nonsense, he listens and observes. Not that I'm for or against it, but there will not be L x Light in this story.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0013"><h2>13. Watch</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Second Kira's diary entry has come in. L and Rae try their best to mitigate the two Kiras meeting.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>AN: A teeny bit of canon divergence here. This ship needs further building, but it’ll set sail one day, you’ll see.</p><p>I'm wondering if I should give up on having chapter names lol.</p><p>Man, I'm so sleepy after posting this... Thanks for reading, replies to comments will be late!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong> <span class="u">Chapter 13: Watch</span> </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>May 12, 2004; 14 00</strong>
</p><p>“The Second Kira sent another package to Sakura TV. This time it’s a video tape and diary. Please get here as soon as you can,” Yagami Sr. told his son over the phone.</p><p>As the task force discussed among themselves, Rui surreptitiously examined the screen that was showing the diary entry Misa sent. In particular, two statements stood out to her:</p><p>
  <strong>22<sup>nd</sup>: Met with friend in Aoyama and exchanged notes.</strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>30<sup>th</sup>: Saw God of Death at the Giants game in the Tokyo Dome.</strong>
</p><p>She had no doubt Ryuzaki had already come to the same conclusion.</p><p>“What do you think, Raito-kun?” Ryuzaki asked, having gotten out of his owl-like perch to stand with his hands in his pocket. <em>All the better to watch you with, my dear</em>. Banishing that random thought, she watched as Ryuzaki stared intently at Light, waiting for his response.</p><p>“Right now… I have to say that he is an idiot…” Light said, an exasperated expression on his face. Where was Ryuk? Rui looked around.</p><p>“Yeah. If he wants the diary on TV, then it must be a message to Kira,” Matsuda agreed. “Even though the diary is from last year, the Giants are also playing in the dome this year on 05/30, so it’s obvious that he wants to meet Kira there.” No. Rui didn’t remember much about this part of the story, but she knew Misa had seen Light in a café. Besides, the Giants game was far too obvious.</p><p>“If this is shown on TV, people will panic,” Yagami Sr. mused. “The game may even be postponed.”</p><p>“Yes, there’ll be a major panic,” Matsuda agreed. “Those media folk will probably exaggerate the story saying that everyone at the game will die.”</p><p>But L’s eyes were already fixed on the box of chocolates. In particular, one with apricot cream filling. “The truth is… I think he is a real idiot…” <em>Oh, Ryuzaki. You don’t really think that?</em> Misa’s methods were not very inventive but she always got what she set out to do. “…So much so that I’m not sure how to deal with this.” He chewed, putting his thoughts together.</p><p>“If we show the diary, we’ll have to cancel the game on the 30<sup>th</sup>. If we don’t show it, the Second Kira won’t move out of the shadows…”</p><p>“Yeah, and we may even anger him if we don’t show it…” Matsuda added.</p><p>“That shouldn’t be a problem,” Ryuzaki corrected. “The Second Kira worships Kira. He has agreed not to kill innocent people in response to our fake Kira tape and I think we can hold him to that. First, we have to air the diary. Then, we have to cancel the game on the 30<sup>th</sup> and prepare to set up a perimeter around the Tokyo Dome on that day. Please ask the policemen who helped during the Sakura TV incident. They should be willing to assist us again. After that, we’ll make another Kira tape for an ‘understood, see you then’ reply.”</p><p>Yagami Sr. was a little skeptical. “Do you think that they’ll actually go ahead and meet, knowing that we’ll be watching for them?”</p><p>“The real Kira probably won’t, but… the Second Kira seems rather foolish and rash, his actions are unpredictable… We have to at least check out all the locations on the respective dates that they are mentioned.”</p><p>He looked at Yagami Sr. “Please set up as much of a surveillance perimeter around Aoyama and Shibuya as you can. We need to send some disguised investigators there on these dates.” Rui understood that Ryuzaki didn’t want to show his hand this early, but she worried that there wouldn’t be enough investigators to catch Misa in Aoyama. “We have to do some field work in Aoyama and Shibuya and look for possibly suspicious people holding notes and buying clothes.”</p><p>“But if Kira or the Second Kira discover us, they may kill us,” Yagami Sr. said. “It’s too dangerous.”</p><p>“If the Second Kira is so stupid as to go to the Dome knowing that it’ll be crawling with police, then we’ll catch him easily,” replied Ryuzaki, already fixing himself another cup of coffee. Misa would have had no choice but to go to Aoyama.</p><p>“Catch him easily…? Lots of people will die in the process…” Matsuda wondered, puzzled. Ryuzaki really needed to work on saying things more directly. But then again, even geniuses had their little flaws, right?</p><p>“No… I think Ryuzaki is saying that the Second Kira won’t be so stupid as to still go to the Dome…” Atta boy, Yagami Sr.! Rui was starting to like him more and more, and she fixed him a nice cup of coffee.</p><p>“No… If anyone joins the investigation, he has to be prepared to make the sacrifice,” Ryuzaki stated, glancing quickly at Light. “But for Aoyama and Shibuya, Kira and the Second Kira probably won’t attack recklessly, so there’ll be no danger to our field agents if they just blend in as innocent agents and look around. Though, in the case of finding anyone suspicious, report back and don’t act on your own.”</p><p>“Anyways, someone like Asahi-san, whose eyes radiate justice and valor,” Ryuzaki added dryly, causing Rui to choke on her saliva, “should definitely not go.” He eyed Matsuda, who was sniggering, and Rui, who was trying desperately not to cough, with a gleam in his dark gaze.</p><p>“So then, I’ll go check out Aoyama and Shibuya alone!” Matsuda volunteered cheerfully, unheeding of the dubious expression Aizawa was shooting him.</p><p>“I’ll go, too,” Light announced, stepping forwardly valiantly, brushing off his father’s protests. “It’s fine, dad. I go to Aoyama and Shibuya sometimes, too. I’ll blend right in. Plus, the Second Kira will be too busy looking for Kira to notice me.” As expected of someone with an 8/10 willingness to act! So... Neither Light nor Matsuda radiated honor and valor? Well, neither would Rui, she supposed.</p><p>“Alright, then we’ll air this tomorrow,” Ryuzaki decided, finally looking away from Light. “Asahi-san, can you make an appointment with the executives before the news broadcasts tomorrow?”</p><p>“Okay, I’ll try,” acceded Yagami Sr.</p><p>Ryuzaki’s cautiousness was top-notch, and Rui was saying this with only the highest esteem for him. He reminded the task force members to avoid going out as policemen and to destroy all photos of themselves. Rui wondered if that included family photos. They were lucky they weren’t living in the social media age. How did Ryuzaki avoid leaving his photo on his student ID?</p><p>Unfortunately, this reminded the Chief of another issue. “You still suspect my son?!!” he demanded. Rui prayed that Ryuzaki didn’t choose this time to be honest.</p><p>“… We simply have to take precautions in case the Second Kira can really kill by seeing a person’s face only,” the detective in question replied smoothly.</p><p>Old Light stepped in, too. “Like Ryuzaki said… No, your actions are steps ahead of mine. Very impressive.” Did it almost kill him to give that compliment? There was a faint look in Light’s eyes like he’d been made to sniff sewage. The best part was that Ryuzaki hadn’t even acknowledged or appeared to notice it.</p><p>“I believed that ‘Kira needs the name and face of his victims to kill’. But the situation is different now…” Ryuzaki replied. “It’s possible that the Second Kira, and maybe Kira himself, can kill by looking only at a person’s face. We can’t leave ourselves vulnerable, and we have to catch the Second Kira as soon as possible.”</p><p>Yagami Sr. was too sharp to be truly mollified by what Ryuzaki had said, but at least he didn’t seem quite so agitated this time.</p><p>Ryuzaki watched unblinkingly as Light got into a taxi, with Matsuda seeing him off. He immediately took out his phone.</p><p>“This is Ryuzaki,” he said, as soon as the line picked up. “When you are in Aoyama and Shibuya, please work together with Raito-kun. I would also like a report of yours and his every move, particularly the locations and times at which you investigated. Make it a secret, please.” Was he planning to make Rui and himself sit through hours of Aoyama footage based on this? <em>Sigh</em>.</p><p>Matsuda looked pretty downcast as he left the hotel, his posture almost resembling Ryuzaki’s.</p>
<hr/><p>
  <strong>May 12, 2004; 18 05</strong>
</p><p>Ryuzaki and Rui watched in silence as the video made by the task force played onscreen.</p><p>“The Second Kira’s definitely in Aoyama,” Rui stated, testing the waters. She tilted her body a little to peer at him from where she’d been standing right behind his chair.</p><p>“It would be ideal if we prevented the Kiras meeting at all,” Ryuzaki replied, turning so that he was now crouching and facing the side. “It was my understanding that Shinigami haunt the users of the Death Note?”</p><p>“Yes,” Rui agreed. Was Ryuzaki… thinking about having her go scout Aoyama? She was confident enough that she could spot Rem, at least. The Shinigami was what, 2 metres tall? If she were in Aoyama, Rui would spot her.</p><p>“We’ll set up surveillance in Aoyama on the 22<sup>nd</sup>,” Ryuzaki said. “Speaking of which…” He turned his laptop screen towards her, to show a club’s website. Note Blue, it was announced, was having an event on the 22<sup>nd</sup>, and it was located in Aoyama. “We’ll start from here and trace back to the stations in Aoyama.”</p><p>Rui approved of this 100%. Studying the photo of the club’s exterior, she couldn’t tell if it was the place Misa had spotted Light. She wondered, “Ryuzaki, couldn’t you just hack the surveillance feed from existing cameras?” But perhaps he couldn’t? They were probably government property, or perhaps they just weren’t advanced enough for hacking. Or maybe they didn’t allow live feed. Rui didn’t know much about CCTV technology. “Or maybe it’s easier just to set up our own.”</p><p>He actually flashed a rather cute little smirk at her. “We’ll need our own cameras for live feed. You will be monitoring these on that day, of course. The probability that we’ll be successful in this is approximately 2%, so we have to take it into account.”</p>
<hr/><p>
  <strong>May 22, 2004; 08 00</strong>
</p><p>Two walls of a hotel room had been taken up by monitors displaying live feed from outside various café locations in Aoyama, the direct result of her toiling for 7 entire days to set it up. She couldn’t complain though – Watari, the incredible old coot, had assembled and set up these cameras by himself.</p><p>Ryuzaki had brought his armchair in beside her, a side table between them. Rui kept her eyes fixed on the screens. This meeting between Misa and Light could not happen, and she would do everything in her power to make it so. Of course, it would have been easier if Ryuzaki had prevented Light from going with Matsuda in the first place, but he was no doubt hoping that either of the Kiras would make an incriminating move. That, and the task force’s outcry would be horrible. The moment she spotted Rem, Matsuda would be alerted to stall Light and a plainclothes agent stationed closest to where the sighting was would be called to investigate.</p><p>She set her jaw and planted her tush into the armchair determinedly. She didn’t have eyes that saw as deeply as Ryuzaki’s, but she wouldn’t let herself miss anything.</p><p>Rui didn’t know how long she’d been sitting there, eyes rapidly flicking back and forth across all screens. At one point, she dimly noted that Watari had come in with some sort of dish each for them, but she’d not looked at it. Afraid of getting distracted, she had taken only a couple of bites before abandoning it. Her temples throbbed a little, there was a burning sensation behind her eyelids, and she felt nauseated, somehow. Probably radiation poisoning, if that was a thing.</p><p>Aoyama certainly was a place filled with beautiful people, hip, cutting-edge and refined, with tons of interesting-looking shops and art spots. She watched as couples strolled past, hand in hand, and youth in groups sauntered by, chatting, pointing at things they found of interest, and laughing. It was like she’d been granted a window into a different life that she’d never known, and it felt both incredible but also… lonely. She didn’t think she’d ever had the opportunity to laugh that freely in a group before. Even in her old life, it had sometimes seemed to her like she had only been allowed to watch from the outside as others advanced in their lives while she remained stationary, unheard and unseen. Sometimes, she fancied that everyone else had been born with a manual to life and she’d lost hers. Or maybe they’d forgotten to give her one.</p><p>Ryuzaki grunted, the weight of his strange gaze resting on her palpably. Had she said that out loud? She didn’t remember. But if she did… Her face felt hot. Here was someone who’d been alone almost as long as he could remember, both because of the singularity of his intellect and the circumstances of his chosen profession. He was someone who was perpetually in danger and couldn’t afford to be seen. Therefore, he was always hiding in the shadows of society’s peripherals, and <em>he</em> certainly didn’t complain. In contrast, here she was, complaining like an ungrateful brat. In comparison to his situation, her unhappiness felt paltry, petty, and insignificant. It wasn’t like it couldn’t be resolved; she’d been making progress in her old life. Here, she just had to be patient with herself and with the situation she was currently in.</p><p>Gosh, she really hoped she hadn’t said anything out loud.</p><p>“Oh, I didn’t mean to say anything aloud, if I did. Did you want to say something, Ryuzaki?” she smiled, her eyes flicking briefly to him to let him know she was listening before returning to the screens. She hoped her blush had gone down.</p><p>“Rui is… easy to get along with. I would be surprised if anyone had a bad opinion involving Rui,” Ryuzaki stated in a monotone. He passed her something and she took it without looking. Huh, it was a full cup of tea, probably sweetened to instantly give diabetes.</p><p>His words registered just as she took a sip and this time she couldn’t stop the flush that spread up her neck like wildfire. That was the nicest thing anyone had ever said to her and she couldn’t help the delicate, warm joy that rose in her chest. She could feel Ryuzaki staring. She'd stare, too. Even her ears felt hot.</p><p>Gosh, the sugar in his tea must be making her jittery, for her hands shook terribly as she tried to put it down. He took it from her and slurped from it in his customary manner before placing it down on the table between them.</p><p>“Th-thank you, Ryuzaki, that’s really sweet of you to say so,” she stammered. It felt like her head was full of bees. Why was she so flustered? She took in a deep breath and let it out audibly, anything to regain her sense of equanimity.</p><p>“Oh, by the way, what time is it?” she continued, a little more calmly this time. Thank heavens. In any case, the sunlight was turning orange and the shadows were getting longer, lending an ethereal charm to the scene she was viewing through the screens. The day had to end soon. She frowned. She hadn’t seen Rem at all in any of the screens. They had been pretty sure that Shinigami had to be capturable on screens, simply because their voices were audible through transmitters. Had they been wrong, or had Rem somehow not accompanied Misa to Aoyama? She blinked hard, trying to get rid of her blurry vision.</p><p>“It is 18 00. I think we can cease surveillance and henceforth operate on the assumption that the Second Kira has seen Raito-kun,” Ryuzaki replied.</p><p>Rui scowled deeply, a sense of failure settling in her being. Making to stand up, they were both surprised as she lost her sense of balance and toppled backward along with her armchair, her sense of spatial awareness having been screwed up from watching the screens for too long. Ryuzaki made to catch her wrist, but he must’ve tripped over a chair leg, for he went tumbling down with her, knocking the breath out of her and hitting his bony chin against her forehead as he landed heavily on her.</p><p>Ole Coon Eyes was heavier than he looked, and her forehead probably now had a chin-shaped bruise courtesy of his efforts. Perhaps she should be embarrassed or more nervous at having a man on top of her like this, but her eyes felt like they’d been sandpapered, and her headache had spread in earnest. She just didn’t have the energy to do anything but lie there. At least he was warm, and the carpet beneath was rather plush.</p><p>“How much water have you consumed in total today?” Ryuzaki queried. “It seems as if you are mildly dehydrated.” He seemed content to lie there, too. Didn’t he dislike people touching him? Perhaps it’s different if he’s the one touching others?</p><p> “I don’t really remember,” Rui croaked, suddenly registering her parched throat. Her breath probably smelled bad, too. “You’re incredible, you know that, Ryuzaki? I don’t know how you can sit there the entire day watching surveillance without having your eyes crumble to dust or something. You even have larger eyes than mine.”</p><p>Ryuzaki opened his mouth to reply, but Watari, who must have just entered the room, beat him to it.</p><p>“What on God’s green earth is going on here?” Watari demanded, though gentle in his tone. What a sight they must have made, if he was reacting in this manner. He was usually more gentlemanly, belying his true badassery.</p><p>Ryuzaki calmly climbed off to crouch right beside her. “I believe Rui is dehydrated and unused to looking at surveillance screens for this long. Please accord her the necessary care.”</p><p>Rui weakly grabbed onto Watari’s hand as he pulled her up, leaning on him heavily as he escorted her to her room, then gave her some water.</p><p>“I’ll have porridge brought over as soon as I can,” he told her, leaving her to wash up.</p><p>Thankfully, Ryuzaki didn’t try to talk to her this night, and she collapsed in bed immediately after her meal.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>AN: Knowledge of canon isn’t infallible here.<br/>And yes, those two legit lay there shamelessly because they were too lazy to move. They would have continued talking like that forever if Watari hadn’t come in.</p><p>How much do you believe in an inevitable fate? That is, how much can fate be changed, if it exists to you?</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0014"><h2>14. Night</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>The task force now knows that Second Kira has identified Kira. Ryuzaki decides to watch all the Aoyama surveillance himself.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>AN: Last time I was too busy to spend too much time on the AN, but perhaps I should disclaim now that I don’t agree with the way Rui minimized her own distress with the justification that Ryuzaki had it worse. Emotions are signposts towards things that need to be fixed in one’s life and should therefore never be dismissed. It’s just that I’ve observed many people I know having this tendency. Idk if it’s a cultural thing.</p><p>As a quote I came across put it: someone else may have less on their plate, but they could have a smaller plate that can’t hold much or a flimsy paper plate as compared to another person’s sturdy plate.</p><p>Also, uh, don’t trust Rui’s thoughts and feelings in this story too much, okay? She’s not infallible.</p><p>AN2: I will be going on a short hiatus (2months at the max). Gotta complete a project. Sighpie.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong> <span class="u">Chapter 14: Night</span> </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>May 25, 2004; 19 00</strong>
</p><p>BEEPBEEPBEEP! The laptop pinged as Watari logged on to deliver a message, interrupting the task force’s discussion on their lack of findings regarding the Second Kira. “Ryuzaki, there is another package to Sakura TV. According to the postmark, it was sent on the 23<sup>rd</sup>. I am streaming the video to you now.”</p><p>“I was able to find Kira. People at the TV station, policemen, thank you all very much,” said the video sent by the Second Kira. Light was tense, eyes on the screen. Rui didn’t quite understand Misa’s reasoning for revealing this, either. Would it not have been more advantageous to just show up at Light’s house? Now Light definitely was a suspect, even without canon knowledge. It practically confirmed that contact had been made in Aoyama.</p><p>Now that Rui thought about it, the way in which Ryuzaki had gone about trying to prevent the two from meeting was a little suspect. Or was she overthinking this? It was usually the case that the more you interacted with someone, the easier it got to understand them, but Ryuzaki was like a pointillism work – the closer she got, the more his methods and motivations were obfuscated. Was it because she was starting to trust him too much?</p><p>“We can’t say that they have joined forces yet,” Ryuzaki’s calm voice cut through the distressed clamor the task force made at the thought of the Kiras combining their powers. “Before this, the Second Kira always said ‘meet Kira’ but this time he used the phrase ‘found Kira’. This means that he has found out who Kira is but probably hasn’t contacted him. At least, they didn’t ‘meet’ before he sent the package on the 23<sup>rd</sup>.”</p><p>Ryuzaki decided that the police would broadcast a message to show ‘leniency’ to the Second Kira in exchange for information on the first Kira. She knew, and Ryuzaki knew, that the probability of it working was almost zero. Misa’s obsession with Light transcended reason. But true to form, Ryuzaki was the type to cover all his bases. It would also put pressure on Light to do something, and then he’d slip up. Hopefully. But everyone knew that the price for multiple murders was the death penalty. According to Mello, Ryuzaki had the power to mobilise every investigation bureau in the world or something. Yet, if Ryuzaki had any power to influence the legal process, he sure wasn’t exercising it now.</p><p>Was there a way they could prevent Rem from killing L due to Misa? Maybe if she were accorded leniency… but she would have to kill less people, so… They would have to restrain her early. But L, she found, despite his power, was still constrained by bureaucratic red tape. She was sure he’d already pulled strings and was in the process of getting a search warrant for Misa’s apartment, but by golly they were moving too slowly.</p><p>Rui didn’t remember when, but Misa would be making contact with Light soon. She’d bought his information online, if memory served. “Asahi-san,” Ryuzaki said, turning to Yagami Sr., “The Kitamura family is no longer under suspicion. Tell Mogi-san that he doesn’t need to go there posing as L anymore. Tell him to follow Raito-kun instead, since Raito-kun doesn’t know him. If Raito-kun is Kira, he’ll probably meet the Second Kira in private.”</p><p>That was a little insensitive, but Yagami Sr. took it pretty well, acceding with only a brief hesitation.</p><p>“As for the spot at the main base of the police station, Watari can take over.”</p><p>“Ryuzaki, you’re really going to go over all of the videos from Aoyama on the 22<sup>nd</sup> by yourself?” Aihara asked, astounded.</p><p>“If Kira is indeed on the tapes from the Raye Penber incident, then Raito-kun has to be him,” Ryuzaki answered. Matsuda and Yagami Sr. did <em>not</em> look happy at all.</p><p>“So, the Second Kira is among the people who came into contact with him?”</p><p>“No, the Second Kira didn’t necessarily react obviously to the presence of Raito. That’s why I want to go through the tapes myself,” Ryuzaki replied. Matsui and Aihara were discussing Ryuzaki’s sleeping habits. Matsui didn’t know the half of it – Ryuzaki slept in the armchair in his customary pose, it was true, but him and the armchair were on their sides. Ryuzaki must’ve just been resting his eyes when Matsui saw him.</p>
<hr/><p>
  <strong>May 26, 2004; 01 00</strong>
</p><p>What was the saying? ‘You never leave before your boss’? Well, Rui had no choice but to take this further. Perhaps the saying should be modified. ‘You never rest until the boss does’, or something like that. Her own experience with all-day surveillance still fresh in her mind, Rui took care to keep Ryuzaki’s teapot filled and his plate stocked with sweets. Ice lollies, to be precise. She was running on pure willpower, almost dead on her feet.</p><p>“Rui,” Ryuzaki’s voice suddenly called, jerking her out of her doze. She wiped the heel of her palm across her eyes before padding next to him, unheeding of the smudged concealer.</p><p>“What does it mean to be human, according to Rui?” His question blindsided her, and it took about 3 full seconds for his words to penetrate her tired brain. Maybe he needed to stay awake too. Or maybe he was a pro at multitasking. Or maybe he was really a tanuki in disguise. Rui didn’t know. The darkness of the room wasn’t helping any.</p><p>“Human, huh?” she stalled, rubbing her eyes hard. She took a huge bite of one of his red ice lollies, and the brain freeze woke her up some. The bright screen was reflected in his dark eyes and he was motionless in that frog-like crouch, but he was definitely listening.</p><p>“I know many people like to define humanity in very abstract, value-based ways,” she began, gathering her thoughts. “For example, they say that to be human is to have empathy, or to be compassionate. But there is scientific evidence to indicate that these are qualities not exclusive to the human species.”</p><p>“Therefore, I prefer a more concrete definition of humanity – all species classified under the genus Homo are human. If you’re born a human, you’re human. We have to accept that we are all capable of both the vilest and most benevolent of actions and thoughts, rather than dissociating ourselves from it by saying things like ‘oh he’s a rapist. He’s not human.’ ”</p><p>“Our ancestors had to be ruthless to survive, and we already built civilization on bloodshed and cruel murder. But now we have the luxury to choose whether to be good or not. Why go back to what’s been done? To evolve is to do something different from what we’ve been doing, that is, to choose to be ‘good’ instead of ‘cruel’. Therefore, leaving the subjective issue of morality out of this, I am in favor of trying something different, less primal, for us to advance as a species.” Unfortunately, the gravity of her words was undermined greatly by a huge yawn she couldn’t hold back.</p><p><em>By that definition even Ryuzaki was human, even if he looks like the product of a ménage a trois between a frog, an owl and a raccoon.</em> Wait, had she said that, or had she been thinking it? She looked anxiously at Ryuzaki but his face was blank.</p><p>He was silent for a long moment, and she wondered if he’d fallen asleep. Heck, she wondered if <em>she’d</em> fallen asleep and was lucid dreaming. Not that she knew how. Also, her lolly was a sticky puddle of red mush. When’d that happen? Oh, was that girl on the screen surreptitiously picking her nose?</p><p>“Tell me, what is Rui’s answer to the Trolley problem?” That question totally came out of left field, interrupting Rui’s clean-up.</p><p>“H-huh?” she stuttered, attempting to wipe away some drool from the corner of her mouth and probably smearing melted lolly on it, too.</p><p>“The situation is as follows: you see a runaway trolley on the railway tracks, where five people are tied up and unable to move. A lever lies in front of you: if you pull it, the trolley switches to a different track where one person is. What choice do you make?”</p><p>Oh, that one. Easy. “I wouldn’t do anything.”</p><p>He munched on another lolly. “Explain, please.”</p><p>“I would let chance decide, because it is my belief that human lives are immeasurable even with traditional standards like quality and quantity. Everyone deserves to live, therefore it is not the right of another human to decide,” Rui elaborated.</p><p>“And if it were a choice between strangers and loved ones?” he pressed, suddenly pausing the screen to give her the full force of his attention.</p><p>“I would let chance decide,” she repeated, staring back at him with dead eyes.</p><p>Huh. Peering more closely at Ryuzaki, Rui admitted ruefully that her opinion on his ancestry had probably been a little unfair. Under the glare of the monitor in an otherwise pitch-dark room, his buggy eyes were less obvious, his skin appeared lit from within, and he had a pretty cool silhouette. Who’d have thunk? She smiled to herself, noting that his eyes were not completely black, but in fact had a faint ring of grey around the black iris, kind of like an old man’s. Fascinating. She probably was behaving like a weirdo, but she couldn’t really seem to look away.</p><p>He seemed equally fixated on her, his pale lips parting slowly under her stare. Unthinkingly, she licked her lips, and his gaze lowered, tracking that motion intently. The blood pounded in her ears and she found herself wanting to touch him. Just a little…</p><p>No. NO. What was she <em>doing</em>? Dazed, she bowed her head and stepped back, unable to meet his eyes. What had she been thinking? Probably nothing at all, which was the real problem here. He was her boss. He was her favorite fictional character. He was.. he was L. That should be enough explanation.</p><p>Hot shame rose in her throat, greatly annoying her, and she fussed at her clothes in prim, angry tugs.</p><p> “I’ll get you more tea,” she decided, snatching up the tea set and leaving the room without waiting for any response. Her stupid heart was still pounding so madly, it seemed almost impossible to breathe. She just needed more sleep. In the morning, she’d probably find that she’d dreamt this entire thing up. What that said about her… was something she didn’t want to consider, either. In the morning, everything would be okay.</p><p>They spent the rest of the night in utter, stony silence.</p>
<hr/><p>
  <span class="u"><strong>This is the end of the chapter if you'd like to skip. The rest of the content below is a character info page for my OC.</strong> </span>
</p><p>
  <strong>
    <span class="u">1. Basic Info</span>
  </strong>
</p><p><span class="u">Alias</span>: Rui るい</p><p><span class="u">True name</span>: Rae Wong/ 王瑞 / 天野るい (there’s a slight joke here because ama no rui is a homophone for 天のるい which means ‘Rui of the sky’. You know, since as far as L is concerned, Rui could’ve dropped from the sky for all he knew)</p><p><span class="u">Birthday</span>: December 8, 1994</p><p><span class="u">Deathday</span>: ?</p><p><span class="u">Height</span>: 162cm/ ~5’ 3”</p><p><span class="u">Weight</span>: 42kg/ ~92.6 lbs</p><p><span class="u">Blood type</span>: AB</p><p><span class="u">Likes</span>: To be left in peace, Having a purpose</p><p><span class="u">Dislikes</span>: Hypocrites like Yagami Light</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong><span class="u">2. Character stats</span> </strong>
</p><p>For intelligence, I wasn’t sure whether it referred to IQ-intelligence or Knowledge of the situation (Kira case).</p><p><span class="u">Intelligence (IQ):</span> 6.5/10</p><p><span class="u">Intelligence (Knowledge of the situation):</span> 8/10</p><p><span class="u">Willingness to act</span>: 6/10</p><p><span class="u">Creativity:</span> 7/10</p><p><span class="u">Motivation (to kill)</span>: 0/10</p><p><span class="u">Motivation (in general):</span> 8/10</p><p><span class="u">Social Life</span>: 6/10</p><p><span class="u">Mutability:</span> 10/10</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>AN: I promised sexual tension in my tags, and I have no real idea how to write it. Suggestions welcome, plox. My excuse for this is that it’s late and people’s defenses go down when it’s late.</p><p>Come on, Rui thinks so much about Ryuzaki in nearly every chapter prior to this; are you surprised this happened?</p><p>And Ryuzaki… I’m not going to lie, I think he’s repressed but has a high sex drive. Whether or not he pursues/ will pursue it is a completely different matter. Is this too OOC?</p><p>And no, Rui’s views are not my views.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0015"><h2>15. Friends</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>L confesses his platonic feelings to Light. LOL</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>AN: AHHH I missed engaging in this fandom so much! Boy am I glad that I finally have the mental bandwidth freed up to continue with this.</p><p>Also, in the course of my research (into DN), I restumbled into the rabbit hole of DN memes. Here’s one of the ones I keep snickering at any time it resurfaces in my mind:</p><p>L: I think I’m gonna lay down… …</p><p>L: THE LAW! You all thought I was going to bed! Justice never sleeps, haha suckers!</p><p>Of course he’ll never say that out loud, but damn does he embody that kind of attitude towards Light!</p><p>AN2: Rui’s being a little mean to Light in her head, but that’s ‘cos she’s in a bad mood. For all you Light fans, I do apologise, but things should change later on. I think. This story writes itself, sometimes.</p><p>AN3: I’m actually really nervous about this chapter. It does contain a little bit of L’s point of view, but I’m not sure that I wrote him IC. I’ve rewritten this thrice -_-. Maybe I’ll even come back to rewrite this again. We’ll see.</p><p>Edit: replaced 'handler' with 'caretaker'. Watari hasn't retired, he's just doing other things for L.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong> <span class="u">Chapter 14: Friends</span> </strong>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>May 26, 2004; 16 00</strong>
</p><p>“Raito, good timing,” Ryuzaki said, turning to see Light as soon as Rui opened the door. “We just got another message from the Second Kira.”</p><p>“Another one?” Light grumbled, putting his messenger bag down. “The frequency of these messages is getting annoying.” <em>Oh? You and me both,</em> Rui thought sardonically. <em>Also, your face is annoying. </em>The lack of sleep was doing nothing for her mood.</p><p>Her mind was clearer now in the light of day. What happened before was a fluke, probably brought on by feelings of loneliness on her part, which were intensified by lowered emotional inhibitions due to her physical, mental and emotional exhaustion. Damn, she must be more tired than she’d thought, because she didn’t quite understand that last sentence. In any case, Ryuzaki had probably been going to call her out on it last night. There was no way, no chance at all of anything happening between Ryuzaki and Rui, and she had created a Pro-List of Compelling Reasons supporting the View that it was a Mere Fluke.</p><p>Reason number zero: he was an anime/manga character and she could not be sexually attracted to fictional characters, even if she fangirled over them. Reason number one: she would be going back to her world, and that was her main goal. She wasn’t interested in anything else. Reason number two: he was asexual and aromantic. She didn’t care what he said that night with the waffles. He was asexual and aromantic, and therefore the possibility of it being more than a fluke, was nil. Reason number three: she wasn’t in the right headspace for anything besides survival, and therefore her actions were brought on only by a desire for comfort. Reason number four: he was younger than her. She didn’t like younger men like that. Reason number five: he was unattractive. Reason number six: he was her boss, and you don’t sh*t where you eat. She had an allergy to workplace romances after that one time. Reason number seven: canon never showed how he’d be in a romantic/sexual relationship. He could be a deviant or… or something. That would be something she’d have to take into account… No, wait, she needed to try again. Reason number seven: canon never showed how he’d be in a romantic/sexual relationship. He could have unsavory ways. Anything less than avoidance of that possibility would be foolish and non-conducive to her survival in this crazy world. She knew that full well. Therefore, what happened last night was a fluke and she’d just have to take care of herself better. <em>Thank you for coming to my TED-talk. </em>And she was sure that she wasn’t even using the meme correctly. <em>Whatever</em>.</p><p>“I won’t use Kira’s name to speak in public anymore. Thanks to the police for suggestions… However, I want to help Kira and get his approval. I’ll start by punishing the criminals that Kira has not yet taken care of… Lastly, I am willing to share this power with everyone that wants to help us. I hope the world will change for the better,” the video plays.</p><p><em>Shit,</em> Rui thought. “After seeing this…,” Ryuzaki stated, “I feel that the Second Kira must’ve contacted Kira already…”</p><p>Misa must have contacted Light late the night before. Mogi had only begun his surveillance duties this morning. Light’s face was being kind of scary.</p><p>“What makes you say that?” he asked Ryuzaki.</p><p>“… you don’t think so?” Ryuzaki asked, reaching out for strawberry crème donuts. “I thought Raito-kun would feel the same way.” Ryuzaki was being exceptionally tetchy and sarcastic today, and Rui was adamantly trying not to look at him. Lack of sleep was probably affecting him more than he let on. He didn’t even try to needle Light further before he launched into his explanation, probably not wanting any more of Light’s feigned confusion.</p><p>“First, he’s no longer saying anything about meeting Kira. Secondly, he said that he wants to get Kira’s approval by punishing criminals that Kira didn’t. Does that mean that he didn’t think so before? It doesn’t make sense unless the two Kiras have met. In which case, Kira told him to start carrying out the punishments.”</p><p>Chewing his donut calmly with his back to Light, he finished, “Kira also must’ve told him to keep the fact that they’ve met a secret.”</p><p>“I see…” Light replied, as Ryuzaki kept one eye on him. “Then Kira’s decision is rather reckless this time.”</p><p>“Yes,” Ryuzaki said. “Even though he didn’t cover all the tracks… Maybe they’re playing with us by hinting that they’ve met. Since a meeting between them is quite a terrifying thing.” Ryuzaki was now laying down the groundwork for his insult.</p><p> “But if that’s so, the chance of Raito-kun being Kira would decrease again,” he finally said. “If Raito-kun was Kira, he wouldn’t tell the second Kira to send such a message. Instead, he would tell him to force L… me to appear on TV,” Ryuzaki explained. “The message would’ve been: ‘Even though I would have stopped if the real Kira told me to, I don’t think that the other Kira message was real anymore. If L dies, Kira should be happy. I have no reason to stop.” There it was. The backhanded compliment and insult.</p><p>Rui bit her lip to stop from crowing at the pensive expression on Light’s face. Yeah, the effects of sleep deprivation struck again. In any case, Light <em>knew</em> he’d done goofed. Perhaps he’d been too keen to get Misa out of his shiny auburn hair. Unfortunately, he wasn’t ready to admit it. “Ryuzaki…”</p><p>“Hm?”</p><p>“If I were Kira, I wouldn’t do that,” Light stated.</p><p>“Why not?”</p><p>“If Ryuzaki is L, then I know L’s personality all too well. No matter what happens, L will never show himself on TV. He will never sacrifice himself. He will definitely find some way around it,” Light declared adamantly.</p><p>
  <em>Translation: I so accounted for that, which is why I didn’t play it that way. Also, I know you’re trying to test me, so I saw through you and <strong>you’re</strong> the one who’s done goofed. Neener!</em>
</p><p>It wasn’t that Rui was on Light’s side, but if he kept letting his childish pride get the better of him instead of trying to play the stupid, he really shouldn’t blame Ryuzaki at all for fixating on him as the first Kira. Hmm, how would she have responded in Light’s position? She’d probably smile and say something along the lines of ‘hahaha, not Kira here but that’s high praise from you, Ryuzaki. That’s great news, right Dad?’ Or maybe addressing Dad would’ve been laying it on too thick? Or maybe she would’ve put in a jab: ‘hahaha, not Kira here but that’s high praise from you, Ryuzaki. I’m sure Ryuzaki too would’ve done the same.’ Or was that too bold? But maybe her personality was too different from Light’s, and Ryuzaki would’ve been even more suspicious if Light had said what she would say. After all, he was the genius, not her. But… Wouldn’t someone who wasn’t Kira keep denying it out of indignation? She wasn’t sure.</p><p>“You’re right,” Ryuzaki admitted sheepishly after a tense pause, widening his eyes in a way that made him look too childish, silly and harmless to be capable of anything more than social awkwardness.</p><p>“Light!” Yagami Sr. was now in Papa Bear mode. “Even if it’s just hypothetical, don’t say things like ‘if I were Kira’.” See? even Yagami Sr. thought Light was accepting his position as suspect too easily. “Even though I know that you’re not, it still hurts me to hear it.”</p><p><em>GoSh, YoU’rE eMbArRaSsInG mE, DaD…</em> Rui imagined Light thinking. <em>I was trying to prove my intellectual dominance over Ryuzaki by throwing his words back at him and this Papa Bear intervention is cramping my style. </em>Of course, his actual reaction wasn’t half as interesting.</p><p>“Ah… Sorry, Dad,” Light replied mildly. “I just wanted to tell Ryuzaki what I thought. The faster we solve this case, the faster I can prove my innocence. And by saying stuff like ‘If I were Kira’, it shows that I am not Kira. You worry too much, Dad.”</p><p>“Aye, Raito-kun shouldn’t be Kira…,” Ryuzaki affirmed, turning away and beginning to prepare another overly-sugared cup of coffee for himself. “But if he were, I would be in turmoil…” He stared at the swirling mass of black coffee and white sugar cubes in his cup, pausing for effect.</p><p>“Because Raito-kun is the first friend I’ve ever had,” he finished, sipping on his sugar-laden coffee. Rui would’ve almost believed him, but for the fact that his eyes were rolled up just so and his back was to Light. Ryuzaki really wasn’t in a good mood today.</p><p><em>Aaaand the emotional manipulation starts</em>. L had already surmised that Light had a very deeply-wired ingrained response to seek approval from those around him, and to maintain the approval of those who already thought favorably of him. Ryuzaki was now presenting himself as one of the latter parties, forcing Light to act as a friend back to him. He was probably hoping Light would let down his guard more if he subconsciously considered Ryuzaki a friend. Perhaps it would make it harder for Light to kill him, too? Or maybe she was understanding the game wrong. She wasn’t sure. She hadn’t been very sure of many things since she’d come here.</p><p>Come to think of it, had Ryuzaki ever done the same to her?</p><p>
  <em>‘Rui is… easy to get along with. I would be surprised if anyone had a bad opinion involving Rui.’</em>
</p><p>Crap! She should be ashamed of her own gullibility! Rui hadn’t sensed any ill intent from what he’d said, but for him to know enough about her to say that… and from the way he’d managed to powerfully affect her just from that, she knew he’d already sussed her out. That was dangerous because sometimes, Rui wasn’t even sure she really knew herself. Still. The irony was not lost on her – for years she’d wanted someone to understand her, and now when someone did, it was in fact an undesirable situation. Honestly, what was the point in her figuring stuff like this out if it happened too late for her to make use of it?</p><p>As if he’d sensed her thoughts, his gaze surreptitiously flicked to her before he continued talking, causing her to tense a little. If she’d not known to watch, she’d never have detected it. Ryuk and Light were still reeling at his ‘confession’. Light, in particular, had to know this was complete nonsense.</p><p>“Yeah… I also feel that Ryuzaki is an irreplaceable friend,” Light replied, bouncing back with a warm smile. There it was, the need to reciprocate social graces. “It’s been boring since you don’t come to class anymore. I hope I can play tennis with you again.”</p><p>“Ah, certainly,” Ryuzaki smiled and turned away from Light. “After Kira and the Second Kira… No, after this whole Kira incident is taken care of, let’s play again,” he replied pleasantly. “I hope that day arrives soon.” There it was again. Dude had <em>zero</em> chill today.</p><p>“Right now, no matter where I go, I get chills down my spine whenever I see someone looking at me,” he mused. He didn’t move, but his words caused Rui to look away from him abruptly. She wasn’t certain that that sentence was in fact a lie. “Maybe it’s better if I don’t hide…” Maybe she HAD been looking too much at him.</p><p>The rest of the task force were staring at his back in varying expressions of pity and sympathy. Yagami Sr. didn’t seem convinced, though. Smart man. Had Rui said she liked Yagami Sr.? Because she did.</p><p>“I guess I’ll be going home now,” Light finally announced, breaking the silence.</p><p>“Take care,” Ryuzaki replied, rather pleasantly by his standards.</p><hr/><p>
  <strong>May 27, 2004; 05 00</strong>
</p><p>L considered Rui as she bustled about, getting him ready for the day. Though no less efficient, her touches were softer, gentler than Watari's, and he wasn’t yet used to them. L hadn't much experience interacting with women. Were all women this gentle? L could feel the air shift around behind him when Rui moved closer, the soft scent of peaches and cinnamon wafting in his nose. He shivered a little as she began to gently brush his hair. He had allowed himself to get too distracted with his planning to catch that reflex in time, and he chewed more viciously at his thumb in response.</p><p>Rui noticed. “Oh, is it too cold? I suppose it must be, since it’s still early,” she murmured, turning up the temperature of the AC, before prattling on about the food she had prepared for him for the day. “We have chocolate donuts and matcha donuts. I suppose you’d be wanting half of each type, and your customary coffee for breakfast?”</p><p><em>No.</em> L was fond of coffee, but he thought it might be too much caffeine for his confrontation with Light later. As it was, there was a jittery squirming in the base of his stomach. It was one of the signs of a good chase. 98% of the cases he had solved and deemed most satisfying had involved a good chase.</p><p>Rui noticed many things. Before he had fully decided whether to go to the trouble of bringing this up, she quickly added, “Or not. Perhaps Darjeeling tea would go better with chocolate?”</p><p>“That will be acceptable,” L replied with his customary listlessness. “Thank you, Rui.” She merely hummed before she left to retrieve his breakfast.</p><p>He had not been comfortable with the decision to have Rui replace Watari as his caretaker, but his handler had claimed that he was getting on in age and needed assistance. Who better to bring into the fold than someone with no better options who already knew L’s background? As the days had passed, he had grudgingly admitted to himself that Watari might have been right. Rui was an earnest, devoted worker, and she had not failed him yet.</p><p>Still, L had reason to believe Rui's behavior often differed from the norm. Once, in consternation, he had watched her through the cameras, jumping up and down on her bed, wearing three layers of bathrobes and singing into a hairdryer about butterflies and searching for samurai.</p><p>The night before, he had caught her sniffing his freshly washed shirt, for reasons known only to her. Perhaps he should have asked. That reminded him, he could not sense any of the animosity he had expected, given what had happened the night before. He had gauged that he had a 99% grasp on her personality, but there had been something he had needed to confirm. Her position of caretaker meant that he would have to be able to trust her at least 99% of the time. Admittedly, on account of the risks of this particular case, he had revised that percentage upwards.</p><p>So, that night he’d taken the opportunity to employ one of his favorite interrogation techniques and backed her up against the washing machine, throwing in his best predatory stare. He’d waited, ignoring the oddly-charged atmosphere and the jitters in his belly. It was part of a good chase, after all.</p><p>Rui had not disappointed. At first, she had meekly looked at the ground. When she’d finally met his eyes, there was anger, defiance and fear as she pushed him away roughly and moved forward, reclaiming her space, even as she’d trembled and watched him watch her. As he’d slowly approached her again, she had stood her ground instead of backing away, a defiant tilt to her chin even as her lip trembled and he was right in front of her. For a long moment, he’d searched her face. There was no submission in her clear gaze.</p><p>He had had to press a thumb to the corner of his lip where a smile had threatened to bloom. He had been right. But then, she had caught him off guard by accusing him of being abnormally fascinated with her. More specifically, she had run a hand up and down his arm and <em>purred</em> the question at him. And when he had tried to regain control of the situation by insinuating that she was trying to flirt with him (he had no idea whether this was true, but he had expected to fluster her), she'd instead tilted her head just so, a compelling, not-so-innocent light in her wide-eyed gaze (which she had no doubt picked up from him), and asked if he had <em>wanted</em> her to be. That was when he had frozen up, finding it too difficult to look away. Waiting just long enough for it to sink in, she had then retreated, laughing and telling him she was only playing. A quick retreat on his part was in order after that.</p><p>L decided to put that incident out of his mind, resolving not to be surprised by Rui again, and knowing that he would have to revise his estimate of her.</p><p>L knew full well that Rui was often irritated at him. Interestingly, her disregard appeared to be mixed with genuine concern for him, which he was far less used to. Having someone worry about him was…odd, to say the least. He was not sure he liked it, especially with the possibility of it having arisen as a product of Stockholm Syndrome. L had done many things that would, by the rules of the justice system, put him on the same side as the criminals he had made it his business to arrest, but this particular outcome of his actions rather perturbed him this time. He resolved to think more on this later, for there were far more pressing concerns he had to consider.</p><p>L believed confronting Light to be a necessity. Surveillance and bugs had already proven to fail, leaving direct interaction with Light the most promising avenue for arrest. He was 99% certain that Yagami Light was Kira, and 94% certain that Amane Misa was the Second Kira, but he needed to confirm that link to bring the percentage up to where he could take action without doubt staying his hand. Mogi had reported that Light was dating at least four women, including model Amane Misa and schoolmate Takada Kiyomi. This was a marked change from his previous dating behaviors, which again supported the idea that Light was trying to camouflage the Second Kira among them. Evidence of Amane’s involvement in the tapes had been found, but the possibility that Light had more than one helper could not be discounted. L would have to rely on his ability to detect their changes in behavior.</p><p>If Rui’s memory served them well, the Second Kira’s Shinigami – the existence of which he was still only 97% convinced of – had agreed to kill him at Light’s behest anyway. It had been L’s ability to instill doubt in Light’s decision to have the Shinigami kill him which had delayed his death then. L did not like to use the same trick twice, but he would bet that this was still the best course of action to move things along. He could certainly hide himself away, but that came with its own can of worms and would not necessarily guarantee results, nor his safety. Besides, perhaps it was better to keep most events the same, to retain Rui’s foreknowledge as a working advantage. There were some things that could have been done more efficiently as Rui had told it, he would admit, but the way he saw it, he had chosen the best course of action he could have, up until the thirteen-day-rule had tripped him up. That, and the Second Kira’s Shinigami.</p><p>Having arrived at his decision, L would not question himself.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I feel like L is the kind of person to have an opinion about everything but be too lazy to expound on things he deems trivial. Like the food thing. If she's already prepared coffee he'd probably just drink it. He's openminded so he believes Rui's background etc, but that means he also leaves room for things to not turn out the way she has foretold. Which is why he relies more on his own observations and expertise before supplementing it with what she tells him.<br/>I've mostly avoided L's inner narrative and gone with third-person type narrative. I hope I've not fudged it up too much. Do let me know what you think.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0016"><h2>16. Arrest</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Ryuzaki goes to Todai and has Misa arrested.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I found this chapter so fun to write, and I hope you enjoy it too! :D</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong><span class="u">Chapter 15: Arrest</span> </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>May 27, 2004; 10 00</strong>
</p><p>Rui could’ve just been overthinking this, and she had been trying to avoid looking at Ryuzaki, but it was getting increasingly difficult to adhere to her new resolution. She’d been feeling eyes on her all morning. Every time she looked in the direction in which she’d felt the gaze, Ryuzaki had been there, but he’d not been looking at her at all, leaving her wondering if she was going insane.</p><p>The detective in question appeared to be peering at the evidence they had collected from the Second Kira’s tape delivery packages, unheeding of the dubious glances he was receiving from the task force members present. “Hair,” he declared out loud. There it was again. She peeked at him. He was staring hard at the little Ziplock bag he had been holding gingerly between his thumb and pointer finger. She rolled her eyes and busied herself with the tea. Hadn’t he already examined it earlier that morning? Aizawa had brought it to him early.</p><p>“Crumbs from cracker snack,” Ryuzaki continued. There it was again! She looked up just in time to see a very small upturn at the corner of his mouth before it was quickly wiped away, subsumed into an expression of immense, industrious concentration.</p><p>He <strong>was</strong> screwing with her! <em>Whyyyy?</em> She wanted to whine. First, the weird laundry incident and now this. And for the record, she <em>hadn’t</em> been acting weird, even if Ryuzaki had been judging her. She’d just been congratulating herself for a job well done and had savored the clean laundry scent in triumph to make sure she had done her job well. Oh, Lord have mercy.</p><p>Why was she so bothered by his provocation? Well, the weight of his gaze really was something tangible. She got a little lightheaded every time she felt it, and she didn’t quite understand it. It was probably just nerves from being scrutinized by her employer. Plus, he was just… annoying.</p><p>“Yagami-san,” Ryuzaki began, peering at another little bag of evidence. “If I die in the coming days, your son must be Kira.” There! He’d tried to sneak a look at her again! If he did it one more time, she was going to put salt in his tea.</p><p>“More hair.” Okay, that was it. <em>Ryuzaki, prepare to have the worst-tasting beverage of your entire existence! </em>Yeah, her judgment probably wasn’t at its best right now.</p><p>“Why do you say that all of a sudden, Ryuzaki?!” Yagami Sr. exclaimed, agitated. It couldn’t be easy hearing that about your son. Plus, Ryuzaki kind of was gaslighting Yagami Sr. too, with how he kept verbally flipflopping on how much he suspected Light. Was the human need for certainty stronger in certain professions, say, detectives?</p><p>“If I die, I’m leaving everything to Yagami-san. Watari will work for you, too,” Ryuzaki continued, unfazed. Well, <em>he</em> didn’t have a son to worry about, she supposed. If he were to die, Rui would gain access to her trust fund immediately, and would not be working with the investigation.</p><p>“After I die, the only one who can make Raito-kun admit his true identity is Yagami-san,” he soldiered on, picking up the bag and peering at it through the light again. Or at least, appearing to. <em>Why was he still playing that game with her? That was his own death they were discussing, you know?</em></p><p>“I’m not sure what to think. I’ve never encountered a situation like this before…” Ryuzaki continued, still pretending to peer through the bag. <em>Did he <strong>want</strong> her to look at him when she was trying to respect his comfort level? He was so childish! </em>She fumed, conveniently forgetting that she was also the one who had decided to enhance Ryuzaki’s tea to get back at him.</p><p>“If Kira has really made contact with the Second Kira, I may die any day now,” Ryuzaki stated, using his free hand to pick up the fresh tea Rui handed him. “Logically speaking, the chance of Raito-kun being Kira is single digit. However, since there is no other suspect, I have stubbornly locked on to him. With that said…”</p><p>He took a sip, and she cackled inwardly in unholy delight. She would have to keep an eye out for his retaliation but this was pure gold. To his credit, his face bore barely a flinch and he added calmly, “If I die, please proceed to prosecute Raito-kun as Kira. I’ve told Watari about this, too.”</p><p>He set down the cup and never touched it again.</p><hr/><p>
  <strong>May 28, 2004; 14 00</strong>
</p><p>Rui had insisted very strongly on witnessing this scene. You know, the one where Ryuzaki acted like a pervert to steal Misa’s phone and feigned confusion when Light called it. That was one of the most priceless scenes in canon, along with ‘I’ll take a potato chip… and EAT IT!’. She obviously had come in too late to watch the potato chip one (not that she could have), but she wouldn’t miss this one for the world.</p><p>She was in the vehicle that Ryuzaki and Watari had prepared to catch Misa, using binoculars to get a piece of the action. After repeated pleading, Ryuzaki had finally indulged her by wearing his long-distance transmitter. Life was good, even if it was a little cramped due to all the police officers poised in wait.</p><p>“Ah, Yagami-kun!” Ryuzaki called cheerfully, in a way that was so out of character, Rui just knew he had to be mocking Light’s geniality. “Good afternoon,” he continued in his usual monotone, looking up at the beautiful couple from where he’d been perched on a bench, pretending to read a book. Rui giggled, drawing a strange look from one of the covered faces.</p><p>“Takada-san, I need to talk to him alone about something. Let’s meet up again later,” Light said to his beau. They had taken a month to start going out ever since Light’s confession to her in the booth. What’d they been doing in that one month? Wasn’t it awkward?</p><p>“Your girlfriend?” Ryuzaki asked, innocently. Why, did he want one too? Rui snickered.</p><p>“Never mind that. Didn’t you say that it’s scary to appear in public? Is this really okay?” Light replied in false concern.</p><p>That was when Ryuzaki went in for the kill, and Rui chewed on the tip of her little finger in excitement before extricating it from her mouth in disgust. “I realized that if Yagami-kun isn’t Kira, I should be fine… Since only Yagami-kun knows who I am. So if I die in the next few days… Yagami-san will take over the investigation and every L will know that Yagami Raito is Kira.”</p><p>If gaslighting were an Olympic sport…</p><p>“Eh? Didn’t I tell you that I’m not the only one calling myself L?” Ryuzaki continued, peering up innocently at Light with his large, widened eyes. “L is a group of people like me.” Rui shuddered at the mental image of 56 gangly pale coon-eyed detectives, all talking in unison in his monotone voice. Why 56? She didn’t know, but… NOPE.</p><p>“Yagami-kun said that it’s lonely when I don’t come to school, so when I felt like taking a walk, I came to the campus…” Ryuzaki continued, still keeping that innocent tone that was probably annoying Light, “If I don’t have to worry about dying, the university is a great place.” Rui loved how he’d used Light’s own words against him.</p><p>“… … Yeah, I can’t find anyone good enough to chat with when Ryuuga isn’t here,” Light finally replied. <em>Ooh, better not let Takada hear that</em>, Rui snorted.</p><p>“Not even that girl-genius Takada?” Exactly. Though… Careful there, Ryuzaki, you’re sounding like a jealous girlfriend. Come to think of it, the first time he’d gone to meet Ryuzaki, hadn’t he told his mother and sister he’d been out with a girlfriend? Let’s see, to build a ship, you’d need wood, and nails, and a hammer, and…</p><p>“Nope, not even,” Light insisted.</p><p>Light was probably wrestling internally with his decision to have Rem kill L. “Want to get some cake?” Ryuzaki asked, getting up. Light was about to follow him.</p><p>“Raito~ There you are~~” Ah, our pretty female lead arrived. “I came to this area for a photoshoot, so I just dropped by to see you. The thing starts at two, so there’s still time… The university is such an open place and easy to get in and out of.” Right? Right? Rui’d even been able to sit in on lectures despite not being officially enrolled.</p><p>Ryuzaki’s head swiveled around so fast, Rui wondered if he’d sprained his neck. He <em>definitely</em> had his eyes on Misa now, and Light knew it. “Are you Raito’s friend?” Misa asked. “You look so unique. I’m Raito’s girlfriend, Amane Misa.” Misa seemed like had more than a few screws loose, but Rui had to admire the way she asserted herself confidently in this new social situation. She was a little worried, though. Misa had definitely seen Ryuzaki’s real name, for she looked confused.</p><p>“Ryuuga Hideki,” Ryuzaki replied, beginning to chew on his index finger as he shuffled towards her.</p><p>“Eh? Ryuuga Hideki?” Misa sounded even more confused.</p><p>“Yeah, his name is exactly the same as the pop idol’s,” Light confirmed, holding Misa by the shoulders and turning her around to face him.</p><p>Ryuzaki suddenly started chuckling creepily around his index nail, and Light caught it.</p><p>“Yagami-kun…” he began, creeping closer to Misa as Light tensed, “I envy you.” Ryuk was laughing in the background. Huh, Rem wasn't there. What did Shinigami do when they weren't bothering their humans? “I’m a big fan of Misa’s after reading the March issue of ‘18’!” Wasn’t that the first issue in which Misa appeared, or something? In any case, he was really ratcheting up the creep factor.</p><p>“Ah, that’s great-“ Misa started to reply.</p><p>“Ah, it’s Misa!” an unfamiliar voice exclaimed. People were starting to take notice of her, and a crowd was quickly forming.</p><p>“Ah! Who touched my butt?!” Misa suddenly exclaimed. Ryuzaki was standing there goofily with his right hand outstretched.</p><p>He strode around awkwardly, playing his part. “I won’t allow such actions in the school,” he declared self-righteously. “I’ll take responsibility for catching him!” Ryuzaki didn’t usually act this goofy around the task force members as it would’ve undermined his authority. This was priceless, in Rui’s opinion. Plus, in the midst of the background clamor, there was some other guy who said ‘I wanna touch too!’ How had she missed that bit of canon?</p><p>“Hahaha, you’re funny,” Misa giggled. Rui agreed. Light was just standing there with a stoned look on his face that made Rui laugh even harder. At this point, the rest of the van’s occupants were staring at her worriedly. She waved a hand to reassure them she was okay. Thankfully, they didn’t press.</p><p>Suddenly, Misa was dragged away by a sharply-dressed, dark-haired woman with cats-eye glasses. “Misa, hurry up and go to the studio! You’ll be late again!” Misa’s manager snapped.</p><p>“Oh, well,” Ryuzaki said, stepping away. “Maybe I should attend lecture once in a while. We’re in the same psychology class next, right?” At the same time, Aizawa, Mogi and Matsuda, whom Rui’d been sharing the vehicle with, had begun to move. Well, that was her cue to vacate the vehicle. She would have to get back to the hotel on her own after running domestic errands; Watari would be too busy setting up Misa’s interrogation. She crouched behind a bush, still watching through the binoculars and feeling like a voyeur, though her vicarious glee wasn’t any less diminished at the thought. Was this how Ryuk felt following Light around? She could kind of understand why he dropped the Death Note, now.</p><p>Light told Ryuzaki he needed the washroom first, and then immediately started to call Misa as Ryuzaki walked on ahead.</p><p>Rui clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle her laughter as the ringtone sounded from Ryuzaki’s jeans. He held out the phone at eye level, watching as the phone continued to ring, probably with a shit-eating grin on his face. He answered it, likely figuring that there was no point in hiding that he had it. The thing had practically been vibrating and ringing from the pocket of his pants.</p><p>“Hello?” Ryuzaki said innocently. “Hello? Hellooo?” Everyone, especially himself, knew he didn’t have to say it so many times.</p><p>The thought of Light’s murderous expression, juxtaposed against the fancy way he held his cellphone made Rui cackle again. “I found this cell phone amidst the chaos earlier…” Ryuzaki continued innocently, fooling no one. “Helloooo?”</p><p>“Oh, I see.” He went back and passed the phone to Light, just as the officers brought Misa back into the vehicle. One of them, probably Aizawa, called Ryuzaki, probably telling him they were done. “It’s done? I see,” Rui heard him say.</p><p>Ryuzaki couldn’t resist pressuring Light. “For Yagami-kun, this news may be good or bad,” he informed the teen, who was probably sweating buckets already. “Amane Misa has been arrested as the prime suspect for the Second Kira. In Amane’s room, we found a lot of evidence. For example, the cat hair found on the tape of the Second Kira’s video cassette. There are also make-up powder and clothing fibers.” <em>Misa owned a cat? How come we never see it in canon?</em></p><p>“In order to prevent the certain-chaos that would otherwise ensue, we’ve decided not to publicise our capture. We told her agent that she is under arrest for possession of illegal drugs. That way, it won’t create too much public uproar.”</p><p>Light did not say anything.</p><p>“Are you alright, Yagami-kun,” Ryuzaki said innocently, peering at him. “Your girlfriend is suspected for being the 2<sup>nd</sup> Kira… I understand how you must feel…” <em>As if.</em> Rui would bet money that Ryuzaki had <em>never</em> had a girlfriend or boyfriend, nor was he ever likely to. He just had to rub it in, didn’t he? But hey, she wasn’t complaining.</p><p>Ryuzaki must’ve been wanting to tease Light further, because he walked back to Light, telling him he needed the washroom too and that they might as well go together to class. Light still wasn’t saying anything.</p><p>They say that when it rains, it pours, and this was especially true for Light that day. “Yagami-kun?” Takada’s voice called, causing Light to tense further. How much had she seen and heard? “I would like to speak with you.” There was steel in her cultured voice.</p><p>“Is she your girlfriend too, Yagami-kun?” Ryuzaki asked, tilting his head again. “Hello, I’m Ryuuga Hideki.” He was enjoying this far too much.</p><p>Takada’s expression looked even more constipated at the word ‘too’, but one could never accuse Seiso Takada of gracelessness. “Takada Kiyomi,” she responded gently, inclining her head. “Pleasure.”</p><p>Before Ryuzaki could invite himself along, Light cut in tersely, “Ryuuga, Takada-san and I would like to speak in private. I’ll see you later?” Wow, he wasn’t even trying to be polite.</p><hr/><p>
  <strong>May 28, 2004; 15 03</strong>
</p><p>What, did that little interaction convince Ryuzaki of Takada’s lack of culpability, somehow? Takada wasn’t Kira, so Rui supposed it should be fine that she saw Ryuzaki’s face. Probably. Still, she was pretty sure that hadn’t happened in canon. Should they be worried? Ryuzaki was probably doing something about Takada, right? Dude was too cagey to share his plans with her.</p><p>After his little performance, Ryuzaki had called Rui up on her phone, telling her to meet him at the same coffee shop where she’d first spied on Ryuk. He’d been serious about the offer for cake, he had said, and now she had to take Light’s place. She wasn’t going to question his invitation, of course, but she felt a little uncomfortable as she wasn’t in her disguise. He was one of the top students at Todai; surely some student would recognize him in passing with his ‘unique’ appearance, as Misa had put it.</p><p>“That was awesome!” she congratulated Ryuzaki, nudging at his arm in a friendly manner and trying not to react to the way he flinched a little. Was he so unused to touch? “He didn’t suspect anything at all until you answered the phone!”</p><p>Ryuzaki didn’t react at all. He was too busy chowing down on his cake. He’d insisted on paying, and had personally fetched all the cakes he bought from the counter while she kept their seats. “Hello? Hellooo?” Rui called, playfully imitating the way he had answered Misa’s phone. She was being childish, she knew, but she couldn’t help the excitement. Plus, wasn’t imitation the best form of flattery? She’d known what would happen in canon, but she had still been a little worried about Ryuzaki.</p><p>“Are you alright, Ryuuga-kun,” Rui continued, imitating the way he had spoken and peered at Light. “I understand how you must feel…”</p><p>He still didn’t respond, though she thought she saw the corner of his mouth turn up by one millimeter before he hid again behind his food. Ryuzaki sometimes had this particular smile Rui had dubbed the ‘Mona Lisa’. You know, because the onlooker felt like he should be smiling, but when they looked at his mouth, it didn’t seem so but that was because of the minuscule upward turn of the smile?</p><p>“Is that a cute smile I spy from our favorite detective, hmm?” Rui cooed, patting the back of his chair and taking the chance to tease him a little. He was in a good mood from having outmaneuvered Light. She took a bite of her cake-</p><p>And spat it out, causing some drool to leak from the corner of her mouth. <em>How undignified</em>. <em>Damn Ryuzaki!</em> She tentatively tasted what she thought were dustings of sugar on her mille crepe cake, before spitting out the contaminated saliva. It was salt! She should’ve known.</p><p>He looked on, wide-eyed, as she glared at him. Sighing, she elected not to say anything. It wasn’t worth an argument, she surmised, scraping the top layer of salt-covered icing off her cake with a pout. Ryuzaki then took the chance to steal its chocolate rose garnish which she’d put aside on her plate for later. Saving the best for the last and all that.</p><p>“I thought Rui didn’t want that anymore,” he mumbled innocently around the fork he still had in his mouth, in response to her renewed glare. Who was he fooling? She stole his strawberry and cream in retaliation, sticking her tongue out. Yes, Ryuzaki had the special ability to bring out the childish in her. Though, she supposed that there had to be some childishness there in the first place, which was all on her.</p><p>He then stole approximately one inch of her entire cake slice, making a mess and displacing all the cream-filled layers in the endeavour. This would never end if she continued to retaliate, so she sighed and rubbed her head but reluctantly settled down instead. They lapsed back into a pleasant silence as she gobbled up her cake before Ryuzaki could ruin it further.</p><p>Ryuzaki must’ve exaggerated his social hermit-ness. Nobody who was that adroit at pickpocketing and acting could’ve stayed in all the time. What rating would the DN creators have given for Ryuzaki’s acting skills? He must’ve done field investigations in person. Which reminded her-</p><p>“How did you take her phone?” Rui asked Ryuzaki curiously. “Could you teach me?”</p><p>Not surprisingly, he blinked at her. Surprisingly, he actually acquiesced.</p><p>“There is always a significant chance that the victim feels their belonging being removed. One way to get around this issue is to mask it with another sensation, long enough for the objective to be completed successfully,” Ryuzaki candidly explained. “Her phone was hooked on her belt behind her, so it was easy to remove. But she would’ve noticed the weight of her phone disappear.”</p><p>He got Rui to stand up and turn her back to him, placing her phone in her back pocket. He first demonstrated how her phone was removed, without any distracting touch. She barely felt it, a brush of fingers inside her pocket. She shivered involuntarily.</p><p>“Now, with distraction,” Ryuzaki informed her, having replaced her phone again. She startled a little as his other hand pinched her bottom, tamping down the nervous tension that suddenly threatened to overwhelm her. If she’d not been feeling for it, she would never have noticed her phone being lifted out of her pocket at the same time.</p><p>She turned around, seeing Ryuzaki twirling her phone on its strap, chewing on his index finger. “Now, you try it,” he offered, presenting his back to her. “First, without the distraction.”</p><p>Gamely, she tried to slip her fingers into his back pocket. He caught her wrist almost immediately. “You’re being too obvious,” he told her. “Try again, more gently this time.”</p><p>She tried to apply less pressure, but her grip was so weak that the phone slipped back into his pocket before she could take it out. She growled. He had turned to watch her over his shoulder, eyes glinting merrily. “Try again.”</p><p>The third time she tried, he tried to stop her from taking it out again, saying that she wasn’t stealthy enough. She pouted. Didn’t he say that the victim would feel it anyway? Wouldn’t it be fairer to include the distraction? But eh. She wasn’t about to try feeling up the detective.</p><p>Interacting with him like this was so fun that she almost forgot to be wary of him, and honestly? That was the most like herself she’d felt in a long time. The sight of a particular petite girl with a black bowl-cut and thick goggle-like glasses walking past made her forget her train of thought.</p><p>“Yo Ryuuga!” Rui exclaimed. “Isn’t that the girl who’s crushing on you? Kyoko-chan or something?”</p><p>He didn’t seem that keen, but he did look. Typical guy.</p><p>“What drew you to that conclusion?” he asked, rather disinterestedly. Wouldn’t most guys be flattered? Maybe Kyoko wasn’t his type? Or, it was more likely that he just wasn’t interested in that sort of thing.</p><p>“From what I remember, you caught her eye during your entrance speech,” Rui forged on. “And she loudly advocated for your impressive athletic performance during your tennis match with Light. Well, I wasn’t there in person to witness all that, obviously…”</p><p>She sidled closer to Ryuzaki. “So,” her voice took on a conspiratorial tone, “you wanna go talk to her? I daresay I’m a pretty good wingwoman!”</p><p>He turned around, utterly unamused. “No, due to the nature of my work, your good intentions are highly unnecessary, and I’ll not thank you for them.”</p><p>
  <em>Ouch. DAMN, son! </em>
</p><p>“C’mere you rascal!” she snapped, locking his head against her sternum as she ground her knuckles as strongly as she could against his scalp, also in revenge for messing up her cake. Giggling a little, she made sure to put in extra strength to account for any cushioning effect his hair might provide, and his arms kind of flopped around futilely. The rest of him remained pretty listless, even though they both knew he could easily break out of this if he had so wanted.</p><p>She let him go only when her knuckles started to hurt. As he pulled back, his head was still bowed and his hand covered the spot on his scalp that had been subject to her tender care. Was he sulking (as much as he could with a blank face)? Heh. Served him right. He’d probably used the pickpocketing excuse to cop a feel of Misa. Not that she was judging him or anything. Misa was conventionally attractive to many men, she supposed.</p><p>“Is this what they call a… nooooogie?” he wondered, chewing on his index nail. He dragged out the ‘noo’ in ‘noogie’, probably because he knew how annoying it was. She barely bit back the exasperated chuckle that threatened to break out.</p><p>“This is what they call getting your just desserts, since you like it so much,” she retorted tartly, rolling her eyes. “Hurry up and finish the rest of your dessert so that we can get out of here. Unless you want a second helping of the nooooogie of justice. I invented it especially for you and you alone.”</p><p>She eyed his slice of cake. On second thought…</p><p>“MUSH!” She messed up his cake. She wasn’t afraid of no endless revenge loop.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I can’t believe I never noticed just how sarcastic Ryuzaki was in this scene. He was totally flushed with victory up until he got confused by the Kiras’ losing their memories. He’s actually pretty expressive in his own way. </p><p>I was listening to 'Piano Man' by Mamamoo and somehow I thought of L, with his black and white coloring and his piano theme songs. I once watched an analysis on Youtube discussing Light's and L's themes and how they completed each other. Pretty cool. Near's theme is still my favorite, though.</p><p>Also, I don't say this enough, but thanks all! For clicking on it, putting kudos, commenting, subscribing or bookmarking. And I just realised I could get a beta. I'll have to figure this out though.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0017"><h2>17. Captive</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>A transition chapter on Misa's capture. The chapter ends abruptly because it was getting too long and I wanted to post it now.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>AN: OMG I didn’t expect to be away for a while after that last chapter! It’s just that the year’s wrapping up, and I’ve been thinking about things a lot. Gosh, it becomes a little harder to start once one has been away. I’d better get back into things. You know the DeathNote fandom wiki has a background that changes depending on the season? Currently L is wearing a Christmas hat and Light carries a present while glaring evilly. It’s hilarious. Well, to me at least; then again, I find most things funny.</p><p>By the way, just to remind everyone, I tend to follow the manga plot-wise. So for example, in the anime, Yagami Sr. supports Amane Misa’s imprisonment, but in the manga, he’s much more hesitant, agreeing with Ryuzaki to convince himself.</p><p>Thank you everyone for reading, kudo-ing, subscribing and commenting! Yes, kudo-ing is a word now. (What do you mean I can’t make up my own words?) Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukka, Happy End of Year and Happy New Year, everyone! Can't believe it's the last day of 2020!!!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>Chapter 16</strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>May 28, 2004; 16 05</strong>
</p><p>Rui had been terrible at pickpocketing, even after Ryuzaki had allowed her to practice on him on the way back, chattering to him all the way as he shuffled silently next to her with hands in his side pockets. Still, he’d been surprisingly fun company, and he hadn’t done anything to dampen her enthusiasm, which was rather nice of him.</p><p>Ryuzaki entered the hotel suite rather triumphantly, closely followed by Rui who ceased her tomfoolery, straightening up and following along behind him at an appropriately professional distance as the task force looked up at them. “Ah, Ryuzaki, the evidence all makes sense now,” said Aizawa, turning to him. Ryuzaki’s previous levity had disappeared, to be replaced with the authoritative stoicism he usually presented to the world. Rui couldn’t help feeling a slight sense of loss as she saw that.</p><p>Misa had said nothing, and Ryuzaki decided to have Watari send the feed over. Watari evidently didn’t think this was a good idea, and Rui agreed, for she knew the team members would not approve. She braced herself.</p><p>“UWAH!” Aizawa and Matsuda exclaimed in shock.</p><p>“Ryu… Ryuzaki, this…” Even the usually-stoic Yagami Sr. could find no words.</p><p>Misa was restrained in a way that looked straight out of a porno, if Rui were being honest. She was blindfolded, wearing a straitjacket, and had leather straps crisscrossing her front. She was forced to remain upright, even when sleeping. Raising an eyebrow, even Rui briefly looked askance at Ryuzaki who was staring at the screen. She’d thought he was asexual, but was he… actually… one of… <em>those</em> people?* To his credit, he was all business.</p><p>“She’s suspected of being the Second Kira, it’s only logical to restrain her this way,” Ryuzaki explained. “Sure, if she’s innocent, this will have been a bad idea, but I’m quite sure that it’s her.”</p><p>Aizawa was the first to agree. “Yes… Even though the fingerprint isn’t hers and there were no machines found in her room, we found a notebook that has the same paper as the diary entry and she has the same stamps as those on the envelopes. Also, the ink in a pen of hers is identical.” <em>Oh, L… Why did he end up sending Aizawa away, again?</em></p><p>Matsuda next gave his support, finally convincing Yagami Sr. “… Yes, with all that evidence… There’s no doubt that she’s it,” Yagami Sr. agreed, more to convince himself than anything else.</p><p>The atmosphere became less tense. Well, until Ryuzaki requested Watari to ‘do everything possible within the limit of keeping her alive to make her talk, even moderate torture’. <em>Moderate torture? Wasn’t it slight torture? </em>Rui took a deep breath, silencing the prick of conscience that threatened to rise.</p><p>Wasn’t Watari an inventor? Why did he know how to do these things? His grandfatherly image was spoiled for Rui forever.</p><p>“Also, Yagami-san, I have already restricted access for Yagami-kun to come in here. In the near future, I may summon him here for questioning, I hope you will prepare yourself for that,” Ryuzaki informed him, mincing no words. “Amane moved to Kanto in April and then started going out with Yagami-kun. Amane’s parents were killed by robbers and those robbers were killed by Kira. Also, Yagami-kun had Misa’s cellphone. While this is normal for couples, I don’t think Yagami-kun would normally like that sort of stuff, considering his pride. If Yagami-kun is Kira, he’ll probably kill Amane to seal her mouth, but since there are only a handful of people who know that Amane has been captured, he may be worrying that he’ll draw attention to himself if he kills Amane now.” L now displayed a new layer of conviction that he previously hadn’t. As a reader, Rui had often wondered how L could have been so sure of his suspicions even after both Light and Misa had lost their memories. Seeing this, she now wondered if this had in fact been the defining moment at which he’d truly decided that yes, Light was the first Kira and Misa the Second.</p><p>The atmosphere in the room was really tense. How had Watari defused the tension back then? Ah yes, coffee.</p><p>“Thank you for your hard work, everyone!” Rui announced cheerily to the room. “Would you like coffee?” She ignored the tension as she cheerily filled the cups without prompt. They were probably surprised as she usually didn’t draw attention to herself.</p><p>“Here too, and here, and here as well!”</p><p>“Eh, who’re you?” Matsuda asked her curiously. “I see you around Ryuzaki a lot but you never speak.”</p><p>“Oh, I’m Rui. Ryuzaki-san’s … butler,” Rui replied. Butler was stretching it a lot, but she didn’t know what she was in Japanese. A helper, an assistant? “Do excuse me, but my Japanese isn’t good!” That put an end to the conversation real quick, at least for the moment.</p>
<hr/><p>
  <strong>May 30, 2004; </strong>
</p><p>It was late. Rui had no idea what time it was, but the task force members were exhausted, collapsed in the plush armchairs surrounding Misa’s feed. Well, at least they were better off than they had been last time. Rui had personally collected toiletries and changes of clothes for the task force members from their family members. In that time, she’d gotten a picture of the detectives’ family dynamics, at least for those who were present.</p><p>Aizawa’s wife, Eriko, was a young woman with sharp eyes and chin-length brown hair who was distinctly cool in manner the moment Rui introduced herself as an assistant to the head of the task force. Rui couldn’t blame her resentment of everything to do with Aizawa’s work, considering what she knew of her in canon. It probably didn’t feel nice to have an absent father and husband, even if he was a hero. Considering what a fiery woman she was hinted at to be (hadn’t she punched Aizawa when they’d gotten into a fight?), Rui was surprised at her small stature – she didn’t even reach Rui’s collarbone in height! In any case, the Aizawa family lived in a pretty nice apartment, with a large park close by.</p><p>Mogi and Matsuda had lent her keys to their apartments, for they lived alone. Matsuda’s family was in a separate precinct, while Mogi had a young daughter who currently lived with her grandma. He didn’t say much about the circumstances surrounding that, and Rui did not feel it her place to ask.</p><p>As for the Yagami family, Rui had made sure to drop by when Light was at school. Yagami Sr.’s wife, Sachiko, had answered the door. A nondescript woman with kind brown eyes and short brown hair (Honestly. Did the DN creators think all housewives had the same sense of style and the same physical features?), she had nevertheless pressed a large container of food into Rui’s arms, along with the package of clothes and grooming articles that her husband needed. She hadn’t asked any questions that Rui had been unable to answer (such as when Yagami Sr. would be able to return, the identity of his boss, his whereabouts, etc), but simply wanted to know that her husband was alright. Rui demurred, telling her that he was as well as he could be given the circumstances and progress of the investigation. Sachiko only smiled rather resignedly – it must be difficult being the spouse of someone in law enforcement.</p><p>At this present moment, she’d lost track of how many pots of coffee she’d fetched.</p><p>“Ryuzaki,” Watari suddenly said. “Misa has something to say.”</p><p>Ryuzaki perked up. “Stream the video and audio over here!” he exclaimed. Well, he was speaking in his usual monotone, but there was a slight anxious undercurrent in his tone. Was he expecting anything different from canon?</p><p>If so, he was to be disappointed. As expected, Misa had bigger stones than that. “I… can’t take it any more…” she muttered. “Kill me.”</p><p>“Kill me,” she pleaded. “Please kill me now!”</p><p>“I heard she hasn’t drunk water for 3 days…” Aizawa said uneasily.</p><p>“It’s too cruel for a 20-year-old girl… She’s probably at her limit…” Matsuda added. Did Matsuda always imitate the first person to voice his opinion?</p><p>“Amane Misa, can you hear me?” Ryuzaki asked, calmly. “Are you confessing your identity as the Second Kira because we found a lot of evidence against you?”</p><p>Rui perked up, for she had heard something new.</p><p>“Mi…Misa… You mean…” A deep feminine voice spoke. Rem! She cleared her throat, sending Ryuzaki a telling look.</p><p>“Yes, kill me,” Misa said.</p><p>“You’re telling me to kill you?” Rem asked.</p><p>“Yes… Do it…” Misa pleaded.</p><p>“If Misa dies, I will kill Yagami Raito too, is that okay?”</p><p>“No… no… just kill me…” Misa replied desperately. “Misa was supposed to die at that time anyways…” Rui quashed the little wave of pity that threatened to rise on behalf of the petite model, gritting her teeth. Misa was even younger than her younger bro- NO. The Second Kira was a murderer in a pretty package. Nothing more.</p><p>“If I die now, I’ll be happy… Kill me while I’m still young and pretty…”</p><p>“If I didn’t give you the Death Note… ‘The human stalked by a god of death will suffer great misfortune’…,” Rem lamented. “I am sorry, Misa.” <em>Could we use that to prevent Ryuzaki’s death in the future?</em> Rui wondered, trying to take her mind off Mis- no, the Second Kira’s plight.</p><p>Watari prevented the Second Kira from biting her tongue just in time. Ryuzaki looked sideways at Rui. “Maybe she’s being controlled by Kira before her death…” She shook her head, but continued listening intently.</p><p>“Would you give up your Death Note for Yagami Raito?” Rem asked, only for the Second Kira to smile and nod.</p><p>Misa was no longer the Second Kira.</p>
<hr/><p>
  <strong>May 31, 2004; 20 00</strong>
</p><p>“Stalker-san! Kidnapping is a serious crime! Let me go!” the ex-Second Kira screamed, the tone of her voice different from before, ringing with indignant innocence this time. “If you stop now, I won’t tell anyone. I’ll forgive you!” Rem was no longer in the room.</p><p>Ryuzaki glanced at Rui, then asked Matsuda to call Mogi. “Did you tell Amane Misa that she is suspected of being the Second Kira?” Ryuzaki asked. He listened to Mogi’s reply gravely. Mogi confirmed that he had told her why she was being arrested, and that she had not resisted, as if accepting that she had been guilty.</p><p>Next, he chose to check on the state of her memory. “Amane Misa,” he addressed the restrained model. “Why are you tied here?”</p><p>“Why? Because I am your idol?” the murderer replied. “But you’re probably the first stalker to go this far!” Yep, she didn’t even remember why she’d been arrested. This left the task force members uneasy. Misa-no, the Second Kira certainly was not stupid. Upon realizing that she was in a precarious situation, held at the mercy of some unknown captor, she had immediately humanized herself, trying to make her captors feel bad about themselves by putting their actions into the baldest terms possible. Because, taking the justification of law enforcement out of the equation, that kind of was what they were doing, wasn’t it? Kidnapping? Stalking? The investigation team had, well, investigated the Second Kira’s background and followed her schedule, to the point where they had known she’d appear near Light’s university. It was a fact that they’d subjected her under torture, sorry, <em>moderate</em> torture, for three days and nights without giving her a chance to clean up in any way but answer nature’s call. And how did she do it when she was restrained and blindfolded? Probably with Watari’s assistance. A strange man’s assistance. Rui wanted to throw up.</p><p>When Rui thought of the situation in this manner, she was a little surprised that Misa’s, no, the Second Kira’s reaction wasn’t more extreme. Though, what could she do? A frisson of unease ran through her psyche before she could catch it. No, that wasn’t right. It was undeniable that she had killed in cold blood. Rui should not be feeling anything for a selfish murderer. Hell, this wasn’t even her world. She should not be feeling <em>anything</em> for <em>anyone</em>. Particularly not the Second Kira.</p><p>The task force, too, weren’t immune to this guilt trip, if it could be trivialised as such. Matsuda, the least experienced, the most outwardly emotional, and the most idealistic, was, on hindsight, unsurprisingly the one to lose control at the prospect of their law-enforcing acts being reframed in a less palatable way. “Amane!” he yelled into the microphone, to Ryuzaki’s mild surprise and Rui’s shock. She stared at Matsuda. The man was usually the most cheerful and positive that it had been difficult to imagine him angry. “Stop joking around!! This is serious!”</p><p>Should she go make more coffee?</p><p>“Wha…” Misa started crying. “…So scary… what do you want from me? I don’t want this… Release me! Release me now!!!” Rui’s heart clenched. She no longer had her memories of killing. For all purposes, this was a physically small and helpless young woman they were threatening. Could they- couldn’t they afford to treat her better?</p><p>“Ah… That’s right… I need to go to the restroom!” She continued. “The restroom!!!” She twisted and strained against her restraints insistently, and Rui was almost worried that she’d hurt herself. Rui decided that she didn’t want to know for sure how Misa had to relieve herself. Where was she, anyway? She looked like she was in an abandoned attic somewhere, but Rui couldn’t be sure. The room was too dark, and only Misa herself was illuminated.</p><p>“You just went to the restroom 4 minutes ago,” Ryuzaki replied drolly. “Hold it in.” Rui raised an eyebrow at him. That was a little…</p><p>“What!! You want me to do it here?! You want to see me pee?!” Misa yelled. <em>No, no, no, that’s disgusting</em>, Rui thought. <em>Nobody wants to see anybody pee!</em> “You’re… a pervert!!”</p><p>Ryuzaki hesitated, biting his thumb hard and causing Rui to frown. Was he seriously asking himself if he was a pervert? She supposed the way he’d gone about doing things was a little suspect – well, VERY suspect – but he was only doing his job. She would want to have a talk with him about where this case was going, but now was NOT the time for L to be having a quarter-life crisis.</p><p>Rui nudged his chair a little, being mindful of his need for personal space. “You’re not a pervert,” she affirmed, trying to smile encouragingly at him. It probably came out a little constipated and twitchy though, from the stress she was under. Yep, Rui got stressed easily, even if she tried to make a joke of things.</p><p>That must have provided the needed levity for Ryuzaki, for his eyes took on a sudden air of mischief just as he was about to say something. “Indeed,” he agreed in his customary monotone, but there seemed to be a smug glint in his eyes. Did he mean- Why that little-!</p><p>
  <em>Rui had been really proud when her first attempt at using the clothes washing function of the human washing machine had gone well. Admiring the clean, warm pile of Ryuzaki’s clothes in her arms, she triumphantly pressed her nose against the cloth and breathed in deeply. Mm~ </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Ryuzaki had chosen that very moment to walk into the bathroom.</em>
</p><p>She wasn’t a pervert! This wingding! Rui fumed.</p><p>Huh, that was a good way to take her mind off the unease.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>AN: I wanted to discuss/mention two things.</p><p>First, Amane Misa. The common perception is that she’s not very smart. Frankly speaking, intellectually, that may be so, since she probably only finished high school and then went into modeling. In fact, if she had started doing small freelance modeling gigs in high school to build up her modeling portfolio before starting her career proper, she might have missed many lessons in school. But then again, there are many definitions of intelligence. I do think that Misa was blessed with a preternatural knack for socialization, and at the same time enhances that by calculating how she presents herself, as she has demonstrated in the Yotsuba arc and even beforehand. She’s pragmatic too; she’s always accomplished all her goals, even if she doesn’t set very lofty ones in comparison to the intellectual titans of the DN series.</p><p>She even has many fans (including myself) fooled! Reread the series again, she was in fact a demented stalker. She literally went to Light’s house and threatened him to be her boyfriend when he had never seen her before. I had to reverse the genders for me to see this (hidden gender bias at play here, unfortunately). It’s NO WONDER Light loathed her so much, even when she was devoted to him! He never asked for any of this. And yet, for a while before I reread DN, I was laboring under the misconception that Misa was abused, used by Light, and that she deserved better. Well, she did deserve better, but not from Light, for Misa held the power in that relationship, at least at first. This is so ironic, because all Misa wanted was a white knight in shining armour to keep her safe instead of ending up like her parents, but she in fact, threw in with Light, the one person who was most likely to loathe and kill her due to her own direct actions towards him, which were completely out of line. Misa was a victim of her own maladaptive coping strategies (she doesn’t seem able to form deep connections in her life), and I daresay what she needed was therapy, not a white knight. So, in conclusion, Misa is able to present herself as so innocent that she even has fans fooled. Taken in that light (haha), we shouldn’t be surprised that she got two Death Gods to fall for her. We shouldn’t be surprised that in some adaptations, she got away scot-free despite being the Second Kira. (I know it’s probably not what the creators intended, but this is how I’m choosing to interpret Misa, devoid of author intent and circumstance.) This is why even Rui might end up loving her (platonically) despite knowing what Misa’s really like.</p><p>Second, my decision to keep a lot of the plot the same. The thing is, I wanted to discuss many of the canon events in DN through the eyes of us fans, which was half the reason I wrote the story in the first place, so I really want to keep a lot of it the same. But I also see many places where L should’ve been more proactive. Sigh, perhaps I should’ve chosen a slightly different premise. Perhaps OC should not have told L in the first place? I don’t know, what do you think? Should I modify the premise a little, and if so, how? Feel like my inexperience is really showing here. -_-</p>
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